


You're not the boy you used to be.

by magicites



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: A love letter to LA and hate letter to California's Inland Empire, Alternate Universe - College/University, Child Abuse, Dissociation, Falling In Love, I hope you like Disney cameos, Los Angeles, Multi, Mutual Pining, Non-Linear Narrative, Recovery, Sad with a Happy Ending, Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Vanitas is NOT a pretty victim, Xehanort fucking dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2019-11-06 11:05:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 35
Words: 176,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17938529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicites/pseuds/magicites
Summary: There's no guidebook to tell you how to react when someone who made your life not worth living dies. There are, however, hands to hold yours tight as you stumble through the wreckage.If only you can convince yourself to take them.Vanitas: the place he came from, the home he found, and the people who helped him find it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> me, sitting at a desk, coffee cup in one hand, the other one covering my face: what did i do. how did this happen. i never expected this. i never liked vanitas OR vanven and yet here we are. here. we. are. i have a new son and he is a gremlin.
> 
> this is the darkest part of a massive AU that i may or may not write more pieces for! most of the AU is really silly and this is... not very silly at all. there are still some silly parts, though. if you haven't looked at the tags yet, PLEASE go back and look at them!!! buckle yourselves in, because this is going to be a long ride. a lot of the events in this fic mean a lot to me, so i really hope you enjoy it!
> 
> this fic is divided into three "stories" that are told simultaneously despite taking place at different times, hence the non-linear aspect. one more thing i'd like to add because it isn't very clear: the start of the third story, included in this chapter, takes place BEFORE the start of the second. but it fits better thematically with the third story, the rest of which takes place after one and two. as for the rest, i'll try to let the fic explain.
> 
> endless ENDLESS thanks to atla and nis, who threatened to end me if i didn't post this. thank you for letting me talk to you both about this AU and for being so willing to give me feedback even if you're just calling me evil for the 5th time that day, and for indulging me as i took a nosedive right down into this vanven rabbit hole.
> 
> title taken from the song Basil by Memphis, aka the most sarcastic love song i've ever heard. you can listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csYznLAYLZo. Song starts about ~37 seconds into the video!

ii.

In the end, all it takes is a phone call from an unfamiliar number on a Thursday morning to completely upend Vanitas’s life.

Blinking the sleep from his eyes, he grabs his phone off his nightstand and squints at the screen. The number isn’t saved in his phone, sure, but the area code is from the town he grew up in. There’s a very good chance the voice on the other end belongs to a robotic telemarketer calling to convince him that he’s paying too much for his electricity bill. There’s also a chance, however small that may be, that it’s not.

He silences his phone with a frown, but the damage is already done. A body lifts itself off the air mattress laying just beyond the foot of Vanitas’s bed and makes its way over to him, also blinking the sleep from its eyes.

Ventus, ever the curious one and just as bad with manners as Vanitas, shoves his head in front of Vanitas’s face to get a look at his phone. “Why is Mister Eraqus calling you?”

“Why do you still call him Mister? What are you, six?” Vanitas retorts, pushing Ventus’s head out of the way so he can continue to suspiciously regard his phone. The call ends, only to immediately begin once more. 

“I can’t call him Sensei outside the dojo. It’s weird. But calling him just Eraqus is weirder,” Ventus explains, perching at the foot of Vanitas’s bed. His voice is still thick with sleep. It’s kind of cute.

The shift in weight is enough to jostle the pitbulls on the other side of the bed. One of them - Vanitas goes back to glaring at his phone before he can figure out which one it is - pads over to Ventus and probably lays down on him. They do that a lot. “Shouldn’t you answer that?”

“Eh, probably.” Vanitas watches the screen for a little longer. The call ends and immediately starts up once more. The man won’t give up. Groaning, he answers the call. “Hello?”

“ _Hello, Vanitas?_ ” Eraqus’s voice is strange to hear in the best of circumstances, let alone with so much emotion brewing just under the surface. Who went and died on him?

“That’s me. What do you want?” 

“ _I’m not sure how to say this_ ,” Eraqus begins. “ _It’s about Xehanort._ ”

Vanitas would have hung up the phone right then and there if it wasn’t for the boy sitting at the foot of his bed, watching him with a raised eyebrow. He’s not awake enough yet to enjoy pissing Ventus off. He can play civil, ignore the way his temper flares at the mention of the old man’s name, and go back to sleep once this is all over. “What about him?”

“ _He’s gone, Vanitas. His nurse found him this morning. We think he passed in his sleep._ ”

It doesn’t register. “Wait, what?”

“ _He passed away._ ” Ah. That’s why Eraqus’s voice sounds so strange.

“Oh,” Vanitas says, feeling incredibly stupid. Eraqus didn’t want to say it out loud.

“ _He listed myself as his emergency contact, but you deserve to know as well._ ” Vanitas snorts at the news. Of course the old man would put _Eraqus_ over himself as his emergency contact. Knowing the bastard, he’s probably next-of-kin, too.

Vanitas isn’t sure what to say in response. He’s not sure if there’s anything to say.

But Eraqus is waiting for a response. The longer Vanitas takes to answer, the easier it is for Ventus to press his ear to the other side of the phone and then spend the next twenty minutes apologizing profusely for being terrible. Vanitas scrounges up something to say, the words scraping through his throat like the burnt pieces of food at the bottom of a pot. “I can’t believe it finally happened. What did him in?”

Ventus’s confusion gives way to worry. He pets the dog that’s taken ownership of his lap - Void, from the looks of it - and watches Vanitas with the same look that has inspired Vanitas to do countless stupid things in his life just to get him to stop looking that way.

“ _He had surgery a few months ago. The incisions never healed correctly, on top of… well, I’m sure you know what else he dealt with_ ,” Eraqus explains. His voice returns to something a few notches down from normal, sounding flat and forced even though the phone. Ventus would probably know what that tone meant, but its meaning is lost on Vanitas.

“Oh,” he repeats, stupidly. “Anything else I need to know?”

“ _Not as of now. We can discuss other arrangements later. I’d imagine you want to be alone for a little while._ ”

He’s not alone, but what Eraqus doesn’t know won’t hurt him. “Okay. Bye,” he says, ending the call before Eraqus can respond. He flings his phone away, uncaring where it lands as long as it doesn’t hit his other pitbull, and flops back down.

“Everything okay?” Ventus asks, clearly worried.

“The old man’s dead.”

It’s strange. Vanitas had resigned himself to the thought that this day would never come, given how stubbornly the bastard clung to life even when every odd was stacked against his favor. He got through every illness thrown at him. Even a terminal diagnosis took the better part of a decade to finally do him in. 

He doesn’t feel as relieved as he thought he would be.

He doesn’t feel anything at all.

Ventus, to his credit, knows better than to apologize. “Do you want me to leave?”

“Nah, you can stay.” Vanitas stares up at the ceiling, finding thoughts surprisingly hard to grab ahold of. They float away between his fingers and up to the sky.

After all these years, the old man is finally dead.

“I thought about visiting him this year,” Vanitas says. Ventus inches closer to him, probably trying his hardest to scoot without disrupting the dog that’s commandeered his lap. Good luck with that one.

“Yeah, you mentioned that. You wanted to stay at my parent’s place when you went back.”

“So much for that plan.”

“Is there anything you want to do right now?”

Vanitas considers that. “Lay here.”

The bed’s weight shifts. Vanitas tilts his head just enough to see Ventus return to the air mattress and grab something. He comes back a moment later, Gear hopping up onto the bed after him as he sits down. After a few beats of silence, the weight shifts again.

Vanitas owns a queen sized bed, two-thirds of which is covered in dog beds for his spoiled pitbulls. Theoretically, the bed could easily fit two people, especially if one of them is as slim as Ventus. In reality, Vanitas likes to sprawl, and the dog beds aren’t going anywhere.

Ventus squeezes himself in the small gap of space between Vanitas and Void’s massive bed, two phones in hand. The dogs follow after him; Gear takes over the blanket covering Vanitas’s legs, while Void rests her head on Ventus’s hip. “You don’t have to talk to me or anything,” Ventus says, handing Vanitas his phone, now freshly inundated with a crack along the corner of its screen. “But being near someone else can be nice.”

Vanitas has nothing to say to that. He spends the next hour mindlessly scrolling through his phone.

Months later, Ventus will ask him what he looked at during that time. Vanitas won’t be able to remember.

 

* * *

  

i.

Vanitas remembers just enough of the desert hell he was born into to hate it.

He remembers summers that left his skin red and peeling after twenty minutes outside and winters with winds that whipped at his face and cut ice into his bones regardless of how many layers he wore. He remembers flooding the front yard of a house that didn’t know how to be a home and slipping through the mud it created, because a grassy lawn could never survive in a place like that.

He remembers stealing Xehanort’s ice picks reserved for when his car frosted over and spending the two hours of summer twilight when the weather didn’t try to murder anyone who braved it jumping in trenches and clawing his way out, one pick at a time. He remembers the other kids on his street not being allowed to walk around by themselves, but never being able to figure out why.

He also remembers walking home from the bus stop alone, his hands freezing in the pockets of his jacket as he watched his classmates be led back home by their parents. There was never anyone waiting to greet him.

Vanitas’s life began in that hell, but it truly starts with his face smashed into a plastic blue mat in Eraqus’s living room, 51 miles and a universe away from his old world. He’s six years and three months old, and though the boy sitting on his back may be two months older, he’s a little smaller than Vanitas. That fact fills him with a dark pride.

Too bad that feeling is squashed down by the boy’s delighted laughter. His giggles pop like soap bubbles in the air, like blisters from the desert sun on Vanitas’s bare shoulders.

“Ven, you did it!” cheers a slightly older girl. She’s pretty, in the way that girls are that Vanitas doesn’t understand, but right now Vanitas hates her. There’s a boy standing next to her and Vanitas hates him, too.

“Terra, Aqua, I did it! I really did it!” The boy cheers. “I’m gonna be a cool judoka just like you!”

“You’re well on your way, Ventus,” Eraqus says, chuckling. Xehanort has never once chuckled when Vanitas did something good, only ever when Vanitas spilled milk on himself or tripped on the carpet.

“You were correct, Eraqus. You’ve trained these three well,” Xehanort comments. “It seems that Vanitas still has a long way to go.”

The others’ words are blisters, but Xehanort’s words are like the stickers that Vanitas used to get whenever he was stupid enough to walk outside in the desert without any shoes. Every tumbleweed was full of thorns, announcing their presence in the sand and leaving their mark on every part of the ground. The dirt didn’t burn the soles of his feet the way the concrete did, but each step only forced them in deeper.

The boy lessens his weight on Vanitas’s back, moving to get up. Vanitas takes the opportunity to roll over and look the boy in the eyes. He’s made of sunlight and the ocean waves that Vanitas has only ever seen on tv, standing in direct opposition to the desert sands and burnt coal that shaped Vanitas.

He smiles like he’s never known what crying feels like, and Vanitas hates him more than anyone else. He hates him for having his pretty friends and his kind mentor and a nice family that he gets to go home to at the end of the day, when all Vanitas has ever had is one person. He hates that Xehanort is proud of this _stranger_ and not Vanitas. He hates his own weakness and how apparent this boy has made that to everyone here, that Vanitas is weak and useless.

But he’s not. Vanitas is strong and if Xehanort isn’t proud of him now, then Vanitas will make sure Xehanort is proud of him.

He slams his fist into the boy’s smiling mouth with enough force to knock him away. His knuckles split, but Vanitas pushes through the pain and dives after the boy. Anger flashes in his sea-blue eyes as his palm connects with Vanitas’s nose. Pain shoots through his face and he chokes momentarily, iron flooding the back of his throat.

Another punch comes, buffeted by a chorus of yells. Eraqus and Xehanort rush forward, but Vanitas runs on pure rage and he will _not_ let this boy be better than him. Fists fly even as they rarely connect to flesh, trading blows back and forth that feel like they’re going nowhere. A pair of large hands settle on Vanitas’s shoulders and he pulls back the punch he aimed for the boy’s stupid head. The boy drives his hand into Vanitas’s mouth, the force of the impact sending painful vibrations all through his teeth. Something shifts painfully and Vanitas is certain that by the end of the day he’ll have lost his other front tooth. 

The hands try to pull Vanitas back, but he still hasn’t won. Gathering all the strength in his body, he grabs the other boy and throws him as hard as he can. The boy goes flying, slamming into a dresser on the other side of the room. He screams the way Vanitas sometimes does after he goes through solo judo poses for six hours straight only to get kicked down yet again.

For a moment, it feels really good to make someone else hurt. It even feels great, until Eraqus has the boy in his arms and Vanitas sees the unnatural angle that the boy’s arm hangs at.

Xehanort hoists Vanitas up, his hands ice picks against his sides. Vanitas retches, but nothing helpful comes out. He can’t throw up this feeling.

He knows who the boy is - Ventus, who sits at the front of his classroom because his eyes are bad and the teacher loves his smile. Ventus, who has lots of friends to play with during recess and two older kids who would tear apart the world for him.

Ventus, who sobs brokenly in his Sensei’s arms as Aqua grabs Eraqus’s phone and dials 9-1-1 with shaking hands.

After that, Vanitas isn’t allowed to be around Ventus anymore.

 

* * *

 

iii - _prior_.

Vanitas doesn’t even go to this school, not yet at least, but there’s something about its campus that puts him at ease. The community college is nice, full of palm trees and crystalline glass buildings, but it isn’t a university. Santa Monica Community College isn’t aggressively unique. It doesn’t scream its right to exist to the world the way this school does.

He sits at the edge of the school’s fountain, water swirling into a pit at the center instead of spraying into the sky. An additional ring of water surrounds an array of river rocks, gently rushing over the surface of every stone. The fountain is quiet, steady, constant.

He leans back on the brick edges and watches as Gear nips at Void’s heels. She’s a year old now, fully grown in body but still a puppy at heart. Void is starting to get too old for her shit, but she lets the other pitbull amuse herself anyways. He watches as students rush from building to building, every last one of them walking, scootering, or skating with a purpose.

None of them sit on the edge of the fountain like he does. It’s strange.

A girl, barely old enough to be out of high school if he can even allow her that much, walks at the side of an older man. They look like night and day. He has hair a lighter shade of blonde than even Ventus’s but an atmosphere that chills the spring warmth around him; she has dark hair and dark skin and dark clothing but a smile that belongs to a summer twilight. They’re a strange pair, but the way they interact with each other is comfortable ( _another little girl getting off at the bus stop, eagerly taking the hand that waits to bring her home_ ).

Vanitas calls Void to her feet and scratches her ear. She’s not usually an affectionate dog, but she’s a good one. Vanitas prefers it that way, his face caught between a scowl and a grin when Gear puts her paws on the brick and tries to force Vanitas’s attention towards her instead. They could be sisters from different litters, with the way they share the same black and white fur.

He looks up, and the girl from before has left her father’s side so she can take up his view. She grins at him from underneath a baseball cap emblazoned with the school’s acronym, eyes sparkling as they dart between his dogs and his face.

“They’re so cute! Can I pet them?” she asks.

Her father hovers in the background, arms crossed but the frown on his face far from genuine.

“Knock yourself out,” Vanitas says, pushing Gear off the ledge and back onto the ground. The girl practically collapses to the ground after them, throwing herself into petting them with all her being. Void licks at her face and she pulls the dog in for a hug, laughing.

So much for not being affectionate.

“Friendly, too! What are their names?” she asks, laughing even harder as Gear gets caught up in the excitement and tries to bowl her over. She takes it well, even if Gear does manage to knock her onto her butt.

“Gear is the one that needs to calm the hell down. The other one is Void.”

“Those are nice names,” she says, patting each dog on the head. “Nice to meet you, Gear, Void.” She smiles up at Vanitas. “I love pitbulls, but I feel like I only ever see small dogs here.”

Vanitas snorts. “That’s Los Angeles for you. Every other dog is small enough to fit in a purse.” He isn’t a fan of purse dogs, but he’s even less of a fan of their owners. Scores of them follow the Instagram account Ventus finally convinced him to make though, so he tries to keep his mouth shut.

Void rolls onto her back, comfortable enough with this girl to let her scratch her stomach. Gear still tries to bowl her over a couple more times, but the girl adjusts to them both with ease. Vanitas leans back, content to let them get their excess energy out bothering this girl instead of trying to jump on him during the walk back to his car.

Her father has retreated to a bench, where he sits engrossed in a book he pulled out of… well, who even knows.

When the girl notices him leaning back, she gasps. “You can’t do that! Do you really want to stay for an extra quarter?” She gets to her feet and pulls him forward, just enough to get his fingers away from the edge where the water rushes below.

He shakes her off, scowling. “What are you talking about?”

Her eyes are wide and terrified. “You mean you don’t know the legend? I thought every student did. I’m not even a student yet, and I know.”

Vanitas watches her warily. “What legend?”

She sighs like he’s an idiot, but her smile is fond. Exasperated, maybe - an expression he knows well. “Every new student touches the water in the inverted fountain once when they first get to school. I think it’s called…” she pauses briefly, “Bruintizing?" 

“That’s the stupidest name I’ve ever heard.”

“No it’s not! It’s cute, because we’re Bruins. Or will be. Anyways, after you get Bruintized-” the girl continues on despite Vanitas’s scoff, “you’re not allowed to touch the water again until after you take your last final. Anytime you touch the water between then means that you’ll have to stay an extra quarter.”

Vanitas leans back again, grinning at the way her eyes widen in pure fear, and lazily drags his hand through the water. It’s cool to the touch. “Good thing I’m not a student here,” he says, equally baffled and amused at the way relief obviously floods over her. “And something tells me you aren’t either.”

“Well, not yet. I’m still in high school.”

Oh yeah. That thing he never finished, instead going back six months after he _should_ have graduated and a year after he set foot in a school to get a GED. Ventus gave him the money to pay for the test. He doesn’t like thinking about it much, not with how it makes his stomach flip and his heart stutter.

The girl is still talking.

“I’m waiting to see if I got accepted. Just one more month before I’ll know. But I really want to come here! It’s my dream school.”

“You and me both, kid,” he says. “But transfers don’t get to hear back until April.” Maybe the whole _dream school_ part isn’t so accurate. Anybody who turned down a place as highly-ranked as this one either bled privilege or was too stupid to do a simple Google search on school rankings, but he would have never considered applying if it wasn’t for Ventus. What’s the point in going to a place where Ventus isn’t? 

Besides, Ventus wants him here, even if he should graduate a year before Vanitas can. Or maybe he won’t, given how many times Vanitas has splashed him with this same water.

Vanitas looks at the girl and flicks a little bit of water onto her arm. She yelps and pulls away, shock turning to anger as she starts to glare. “What was that for!?” she demands.

“There. Now you’re Broom-tized.”

“Bruintized!”

“Whatever. Now you have to come here, I guess. Isn’t that how it works?”

She shakes her head. “No! You have to take an oath and pledge to bleed blue and gold to really be Bruintized! Now I’m just wet.”

“I don’t know the oath, so I work with what I have. Besides, it’s hot out today and the water feels great.”

Gear bumps into her leg and she reaches down to scratch behind her ear. “I guess you’re right,” she says slowly. “Then let’s both work hard so we can be students here. Okay?”

“We already applied, so all we can really do is wait.”

“ _Okay_?” she stresses, her smile turning frigid. He’d bet twenty dollars that her father taught her that look.

“Okay, sure, yeah.”

Satisfied, she goes back to petting both dogs. Vanitas’s phone buzzes in his pocket and he pulls it out to see Ventus’s name illuminating the screen. He takes a moment to glance at the time, which is enough to tell him exactly why Ventus is calling. 

Vanitas answers the call. “Is something the matter, Ventus? Someone frown too hard at you? Stub your toe on your bed again?”

Ventus’s groan through the phone makes Vanitas laugh. “ _Where are you? It’s been fifteen minutes, and you haven’t answered any of my texts! Don’t tell me you forgot we were supposed to get lunch today, Vanitas._ ”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t forget. I…” he trails off, looking down at the girl. She shoots him a curious look, but her smile doesn’t leave. “I got tied up. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“ _You better run. It’ll be a miracle if they still let me swipe you in, and Covel’s menu isn’t great._ ”

“Yeah, yeah. There will be hell to pay if Ventus doesn’t get his chipotle chicken. Is Terra still good to watch my dogs while we eat?” Vanitas asks, getting to his feet and wrapping their leashes around his hand. The girl disentangles herself from the dogs, smart enough to get the hint.

“ _He won’t be if you don’t hurry up!_ ”

“Oh no, I can’t talk anymore. I’m running too fast.”

“ _No you’re not, Vanitas! You’re still standing ther-_ ” Vanitas ends the call and shoves his phone back in his pocket. Ventus may be angry now, but the moment he gets that chipotle chicken he’ll be back to normal.

“As much as I’d love to let you tire my dogs out more, I have a lunch date to be late for. See you around, kid,” Vanitas says. He heads towards the dorms, Void and Gear trotting at either side of him.

“Wait!” the girl calls out, even as he sees her father shove his book into a ridiculously deep jacket pocket and stand. “I didn’t get your name!”

He debates about giving her a fake name. It wouldn’t matter if he did. This school is big enough that he’d probably never see her again even if they are both accepted. What’s one girl amongst 30,000 students?

But his dogs liked her and she wasn’t obnoxious. “Vanitas,” he says, not looking back at her.

It’ll take a little over a year for them to finally stumble into each other again. Though Vanitas won’t remember the encounter, lost amongst a wave of students asking to pet his dogs and countless meals shared with Ventus, Xion will.

She’s good at remembering things, he learns.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm doing this new thing where i actually reply to comments instead of just quietly screaming about them to myself. it's different! and fun. a general thank you to everyone who has checked this out so far! posting the first chapter of anything is always weird. second chapter? a little less weird.
> 
> the scene at the end of this chapter is what i feel is one of The Defining Scenes of this entire fic. something to keep in mind! it was one of the hardest scenes for me to write. it's dark, but i think it needs to be. 
> 
> again, thank you to atla and nis!!! i don't know what i would do without u two. cry, probably.

iii.

There are… what, twelve cafes on campus? And only one of them serves a decent mocha. Too bad it’s the one tucked away inside a library on the exact opposite side of campus as Vanitas’s classes.

Whatever. Really, it’s Terasaki Cafe’s fault for having bad coffee.

Iced mocha with an extra pump of mocha sauce and whipped cream in hand, Vanitas snags the last available table. Unfortunately, this happens to be the one directly next to the drink add-ins, but that doesn’t deter him from pulling out his homework. He has three problem sets to finish by tomorrow morning and there isn’t a chance in hell that he’ll get anything done tonight, not with the nightly ritual of yelling and crashing coming from the apartment he shares his living room wall with. Who knew a pair of sisters and their hellhound could be so loud?

He’d offer to train their dog if he thought the older sister had more than twenty bucks to her name at any given moment.

With a sigh, Vanitas slips on a pair of headphones over his ears - he can’t listen to music and study at the same time, but they’re useful when he needs to pretend not to hear someone stupid try to talk to him - and starts on the first set. Even with a ring of foam surrounding his ears, a gasp from someone nearby shatters his focus instantly. Glaring, he looks up from his homework and sees a girl standing at the edge of the cafe, eyes practically sparkling with glee.

What gets him to slip his headphones off one ear is the boy standing next to her. His spiky blond hair and bright blue eyes look incredibly familiar, but he carries none of the sunlight that Ventus does within him. He’s sullen, moody, the personification of an overcast day in October when the wind is just cold enough to justify wearing a jacket.

“Roxas, this is it! Cafe 451! It took us two quarters, but I’m so happy we finally found it,” the girl says.

“Like the book, right?” the boy - Roxas - asks.

“Yep! Though it was written in Powell, not here…” She steps closer to the counter. “I’m going to order an americano. Do you want anything?”

Roxas shifts the skateboard under his arm, covered in a black and white pattern just as edgy as the clothes he wears, and shakes his head. Vanitas scowls. Ventus may wear cargo shorts sometimes, but he’ll take that over skinny jeans and some stupid band t-shirt no one’s ever heard of any day.

The girl orders, Roxas lingers at the edge of the long white table that marks the unofficial entrance to the cafe from the rest of the library, and Vanitas sips his mocha. After paying, the girl lingers far too close to where Vanitas sits.

She catches his eye entirely on accident and promptly drops into the seat in front of him. The same seat that anyone with a single of iota of common sense would know is never, ever available to strangers while college students study on campus.

“I remember you!” she says, grinning. “You were the boy I met with the sweet pitbulls.” She pauses, searching her memory for something. “Vanitas, right?”

Vanitas pushes himself back into his seat and takes an intentionally long sip of his mocha. The girl isn’t fazed, forcing him to actually speak. Damn. He really hoped that would have intimidated her. “...That’s me. Who are you?”

The girl giggles. At least what she says next has the sense to sound a little sheepish. “I guess you don’t remember, do you? That’s okay. We did meet about a year ago. My name is Xion. Nice to meet you again.”

Vanitas takes another sip of his mocha and silently berates the baristas for taking this long just to dump some espresso into a cup of hot water.

He can practically feel Roxas’s eyes burning into him, but either the kid is too awkward or is too smart to come any closer. Whatever the reason, Vanitas is glad for it. He doesn’t have enough patience for one pushy kid, let alone two.

“Why are you talking to me?” Vanitas asks.

Xion frowns. “Because we met before, and it looks like we got what we were dreaming of,” she says, adding a pointed glance down to his homework. “We’re both students here.”

“And now I’m drowning under problem sets. Exactly what I’ve always dreamed of.”

Xion giggles. “It definitely is a lot of work. But I’m having fun, and I’ve met some really wonderful friends,” she says, punctuating that particular sentence with a glance back to Roxas. He’s given up on watching them, instead turning off to the side and scratching the back of his head with his free hand. He couldn’t look more awkward if he tried.

“What a great story. Got anything else to add?”

“Do you still have your dogs?”

“Yeah. At my apartment,” he says, sipping his mocha. If they really did meet last year, then the apartment part has changed, even if the dogs haven’t. It feels good to not live in a converted shed anymore.

“I’m glad. They were so cute!” The barista calls out Xion’s order. To Vanitas’s dismay, rather than leaving with her dumb edgy friend, she grabs it and sits right back down.

Off in the distance, Roxas looks equally dismayed.

“Obviously they’re cute. They’re my dogs.”

Xion isn’t stupid enough to take a sip of a piping hot americano, but she curls her hands around it and smiles. “I’m a little sad that it took me until the end of winter quarter to find you, but I’m glad I did. I have to get going, but I’d love to play with Void and Gear again sometime. Will you exchange numbers with me?”

Normally, Vanitas would tell her to follow his business Instagram to add to his follower count and be done with it. But she remembered Void and Gear’s name, and that’s enough to make her bearable in his eyes.

There are exactly three things in this world he has a soft spot for: his dogs, chocolate, and…

Well, he chose to move to Los Angeles with nothing but a stolen car and a dog to his name for one very specific reason.

Vanitas fishes his phone out of his pocket, unlocks the screen, and slides it over his homework to Xion. Beaming, she takes it, puts in her contact information, and calls herself. Once she hands his phone back, she gets to her feet. “Great. See you soon, Vanitas. Good luck with your studying.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Vanitas says, waving her off. He slides his headphone back over his ear as Xion rejoins Roxas’s side, making sure to give Roxas a dirty look when he glances over his shoulder at Vanitas. Wearing a scowl that would make Vanitas proud to sport himself, Roxas turns back to Xion and drops his skateboard onto the ground. He rolls at her side and gets yelled at by a library aide as they go through a set of glass doors and exit the building.

A few minutes later, his phone lights up. Xion sends him a single text, empty save for two dog emojis.

 

* * *

 

i.

Vanitas missed the bus again. Worse still, it’s raining. He hurries past Sandy’s Market, his stomach rumbling at the thought of the pastrami sandwich Sandy will give to him sometimes on his walk home from the bus stop, but he’s going to be late if he stops sprinting. He didn’t even have time to grab an umbrella before leaving, leaving water sopping down his head and making his teeth chatter.

Xehanort already left for work. He’ll be furious if the school calls him because Vanitas wasn’t there on time again. Vanitas is six-and-a-half years old now, which means that he’s old enough to get himself to the bus stop on time.

Vanitas’s chest starts to burn from running, but he wills his legs to go faster as he turns onto Grove Street. It isn’t the biggest street in town, but it’s big enough that cars race down it more than they drive. Water gathers on the edges of the road, settling in puddles that some drivers will go faster through just to see the splash.

He’s careful to stay as far away from the road as possible, but after getting splashed two separate times, he abandons the sidewalk entirely and runs through any lawn without a fence. Dogs bark at him from behind backyard fences, but he’s too wet and too frantic to pay them much mind.

When he gets to Ninth Street, he goes back to the sidewalk. The street is smaller and everyone driving down the road are parents, so they don’t drive fast enough to drench him. In the distance, Vanitas sees a row of school buses parked in front of the school, bracketed by a trickling stream of kids as they go to class. Colorful umbrellas and puffy neon jackets dot the horizon, reminding Vanitas of the black cotton jacket he’s zipped up to his chin and the rain that leaves his hair hanging in his face. Maybe when he gets to class, his teacher can get him a towel to dry off or something. If he isn’t late, that is.

The giant sign in front of the school flashes the time: 7:50 A.M. Vanitas allows himself to slow down and catch his breath, trying to ease the painful stitch in his side. He can walk the rest of the way and get there on time. His teacher won’t need to call Xehanort today.

A car pulls to the side of the road and comes to a stop next to him. Vanitas takes a few steps back, raising his fists in a defensive stance. He may not be allowed to train with Eraqus’s students anymore, but Xehanort’s kept up his own judo lessons. He doesn’t need to be adult-sized to know how to take an adult down.

His arms fall to his sides when a boy, two months older but no bigger than Vanitas, wiggles his way out of the backseat. A woman’s voice calls to him as he closes the door, telling him that she loves him and to have a good day at school, before the car pulls way and drives off.

Ventus opens a green umbrella over his head and smiles, showing off the gap where his front tooth used to be. His arm rests against his chest in a black sling, the edge of a white cast peeking out from behind the fabric. “You look like a wet cat,” he says. “It’s funny.”

“We’re not allowed to be around each other,” Vanitas says warily. “Go away.” He’ll be in _so much trouble_ if Xehanort finds out about this.

They used to be in the same class, but after that match, Vanitas was pulled out of his old class and put into a new one. He knows the proctors keep a closer eye on him during recess, with the way they herd him away from different parts of the playground without reason.

Well, that isn’t true. Vanitas knows the reason. He’s gotten pretty good at figuring out where Ventus is at any given moment just by watching the proctors tense up depending on what direction he walks in.

“My mom doesn’t know what you look like, so it’s okay,” Ventus says, stepping closer to Vanitas even as he continues to back away. “It’s cold, and you don’t have an umbrella. Share mine.”

“I’m already all wet. What does it matter now?” Vanitas snaps, anger flashing in his mind. Part of him wants to smack this boy for being so stupid, but his hands stay at his sides when he thinks of the broken wail that escaped him as his bones shattered. “I hurt you! Go away!”

“No!” Ventus snaps, thrusting the umbrella at Vanitas with his good hand and flicking droplets of water on himself. “You’re hurting now, and that’s not fair!”

“What are you talking about? Rain doesn’t hurt, stupid,” Vanitas says, something squeezing painfully in his chest at the thought. He’s hungry, sure, and still a little scared that Xehanort will find out that Vanitas missed the bus again and get angry, and he can’t stop shivering no matter how much he tries, but he’s not hurt. His skin isn’t purple from bruises, his bones are in place, and there’s no cast that’s keeping him from using an entire arm.

He’s not hurt.

Ventus scowls at him and wiggles the umbrella again. “Come on. We’re gonna be late.”

That gets him moving. He doesn’t agree to share the umbrella so much as he kind of lets it happen. If Ventus is going to be stubborn and dumb, then fine! He can be stubborn and dumb.

They walk in silence until they get inside the school, at which point Ventus closes his umbrella and Vanitas skitters away from him. He turns to go down the hallway to his class, door thankfully still wide open and welcoming, but he looks over his shoulder at the boy who stands in place.

“I like the pattern on your jacket,” Ventus says. “It looks kind of like a dog. It’s cool.”

“Whatever,” Vanitas says, unable to say anything else to that. “Go to class already.”

They go in separate directions. Vanitas is the last student through the door, falling into his seat in time to the morning bell’s buzz. He tries to focus on the teacher’s kind smile and coloring project for the day, but instead he takes off his drenched jacket and stares at the white pattern taking over his lap.

It _does_ kind of look like a dog, if he squints.  


* * *

 

ii.

Terra hugs Vanitas when he greets him at the door, which is weird and uncomfortable. Aqua doesn’t glare at him as she leads him into Eraqus’s living room, even with Ventus attached to his side like a stubborn growth. On a normal day, she would have led Ventus away to a different room by now under the guise of letting him try her newest batch of cookies. She would have paused behind her friend, letting him race into the kitchen before shooting her patented _Vanitas is the worst_ look over her shoulder as she leaves.

She’s silent, stoic, sad. It’s weird.

Ventus doesn’t try to hold his hand, but their knuckles brush against each other as they walk. Normally that’d leave Vanitas with electricity running up and down his spine, but he’s too hollowed out to register anything but warm skin and hard bones.

Aqua takes the armchair next to Terra’s stool and Ventus sinks onto the couch. Vanitas stays standing. Ventus makes a worried sound and Vanitas feels a hand grasp the back of his shirt, but he doesn’t move.

Eraqus sweeps into the room a minute later. It’s been less than twenty-four hours since the old man kicked the bucket, but he looks like complete shit. Heavy bags hang under his eyes and his proud shoulders slump forward. The old man had a solid decade on Eraqus, but the new streak of gray in his hair and the additional frown lines around his mouth could fool anyone into thinking the opposite.

He wraps Vanitas in a tight hug, prompting the hand at his back to fall back to its owner’s side.

“I’m so sorry,” Eraqus whispers, his hand cradling the back of Vanitas’s head. Vanitas’s cheek presses into his shoulder. It’s a weird hug, one that he’s seen a lot in movies ( _and that he saw as a child at the bus stop, waiting and waiting for no one to come as parents held their children close and brought them home_ ), but not one that he knows how to return very well. Nothing at all like the brief touches the old man rarely gave him as a kid. Where are his hands supposed to go, anyways?

Vanitas can’t figure it out, but he returns the embrace for Eraqus’s sake.

He has a little experience with hugging etiquette. He knew how to react the day he showed up at Ventus’s dorm room with his acceptance letter to Ventus’s school pulled up on his phone. Ventus had grinned with all the strength of the Santa Monica sunlight on a spring afternoon, leaping forward and slamming Vanitas into the opposite wall with the force of his hug.

Ventus had pulled them back with a sheepish apology before latching onto Vanitas’s waist and spinning him in a circle. Vanitas knew to keep his arms loose around Ventus’s neck, and maybe he had even let the other boy’s laughter be a little more contagious than necessary as they went in circles.

That was eight months ago, but it couldn’t be further than the present.

Vanitas loses all the words he could possibly say. He’s a little sorry for Eraqus, maybe. Mostly he’s angry at Eraqus for being upset when there’s no way he could have been so ignorant of what the old man did. Xehanort doesn’t deserve their sorrys.

“Is he still here?” Vanitas asks instead.

Eraqus pulls away, his hands settling on Vanitas’s shoulders. His eyes swim with tears. Vanitas simply frowns. “Not anymore. The paramedics came yesterday. I’m not sure what you’d like to do with the house, but we should at the very least get rid of the mattress. It doesn’t feel right to keep it there when he…” Eraqus trails off, taking a hand off of Vanitas to cover his eyes.

Vanitas doesn’t need him to spell it out. The old man died on that mattress.

“We should start cleaning out some of his things as well,” Eraqus adds from behind his hand. “Check any unopened mail, make sure that his debts are accounted for so you won’t have to deal with unexpected fees later on.”

“Do we need to do that now, Mister Eraqus?” Aqua asks. Vanitas looks back at Aqua, baffled, but finds nothing but earnestness in her gaze. What does she mean, _we_? She barely knew the bastard.

“I’ve already called a trailer over. We can haul out any unneeded furniture. His house is…” Eraqus pauses, clearly searching for the most tactful way to put what Vanitas already knows he’s going to say, “...not kept up to the same standard of cleanliness that you may be used to.”

“So it’s even more of a dump than it was when I left it,” Vanitas says blandly.

Eraqus doesn’t respond to that, probably because he can’t deny the truth in those words. Aqua gets to her feet. “Terra, Ven, and I can head over now,” she offers.

“I’m going with Vanitas,” Ventus says. He exchanges glances with Aqua, sharing a silent conversation that Vanitas could never find access to. If this were a normal situation, she would never relent.

But the old man is dead, so Aqua nods and Vanitas finds sunlight at his side once more.

“Terra, Aqua,” Eraqus says, his other hand finally dropping from Vanitas’s shoulder. He pulls a little of his old self back, standing taller than he had just moments before. “You two will come with me. Vanitas, I trust you remember the way there?”

“I’ve tried to forget. Trust me, it didn’t work,” Vanitas grumbles. Twin glances of sympathy flash in Terra and Aqua’s eyes, but Vanitas turns away from them and focuses on the fingers that lace between his. Ventus leans closer until their shoulders are pressed together.

There should be a firework of nerve endings firing off in every part of Vanitas’s body, setting his heartbeat at a frantic staccato. There should be a swallowed groan from Aqua and Terra’s hand on her shoulder, because for as dumb Terra can be, he understands what it’s like to make a horrible choice and spend the rest of your life trying desperately to make amends. Eraqus should raise an eyebrow and make a vague comment that leaves Vanitas darting out of Ventus’s grasp, reminding him exactly why they’ve danced around each other for over a decade in a waltz with no end.

There’s none of that. Just a warmth against his side and a void in his mind.

The drive to the old man’s house, the same house that Vanitas spent most of his life desperate to escape, is a quiet one. Ventus doesn’t say anything, but he keeps shooting Vanitas the look that he’s learned to mean _there’s something I want to tell you, but I can’t figure out how to put it into words yet._

Driving through the same streets he grew up on is weird, the same way that Terra trying to crush him in a bear hug and Aqua looking at him with sympathy instead of annoyance is weird. He left this sleepy town behind for ocean waves and neon lights over four years ago. He’s changed too much to belong here anymore.

Then again, he never really belonged here in the first place. He spent most of his life here, but neither this sleepy suburb nor the desert hell he crawled out of were meant for him.

“I haven’t been here since I was eighteen,” Vanitas says as he parks the car. The outside of the house looks almost the same, still the same tiny two-bedroom bungalow built in the 1940’s like half the places around here. The lawn is deader than it used to be, crabapples peeking out between blades of brown grass. Vanitas was decidedly much better at yard work than the nurse ever was.

Vanitas was probably a better nurse than the nurse ever was, if he’s being honest. He knew when to shut up and do what the old man asked. He never needed help caring for himself until Vanitas was halfway through high school, but even those two years have been seared into his memory.

He wishes he could rip his own mind apart and burn those memories so he’d never have to think of them again. He’d burn the house down too, if he could.

“I still can’t stand the smell of his tea,” Vanitas says, unlocking his seatbelt but making no move to open the door. The bastard always drank a specific brand, demanding that Vanitas make it over and over until it was perfectly steeped. He can tell by the color of the tea when it’s done now. Not like it’ll ever come in handy, but some things aren’t easy to banish.

Ventus watches him intently. Vanitas wishes he could feel enough to let Ventus work his way into his core and leave him ablaze like he normally does. He still doesn’t feel much of anything, besides an intense desire to be back at his apartment walking Void and Gear through the winding hills of Westwood.

Eraqus still isn’t here. Figures.

“It doesn’t feel real,” Vanitas says. Somehow, that realization is enough to get him out of his car. The December sun warms the back of his jacket (leather, the one Ventus insists makes him look like a poser as if that word had any relevance after middle school), but the wind chill still forces him to shove his hands in his pockets.

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Ventus asks, falling in step besides Vanitas for the brief trip to the front door.

“Not sure. Get back to me in a few days and maybe I’ll have an answer.”

They regard the closed door.

“You don’t have a key, do you.”

“Nope.” He traded his house key for the old man’s car keys the day he left. What did he need a car for, when he couldn’t walk to the kitchen on his own? It only made sense for Vanitas to take it, forge a couple of signatures, and get it under his name.

Ventus hums, his hand reaching out for the screen door. That one never locked in the first place, so it opens easily. The wooden one behind it catches on the doorframe, but with a hard enough push it swings open. Guess whatever poor sap had to cart out the old man’s corpse forgot to lock the door behind themself.

“I’ve known you for years, and I’ve never once been inside where you grew up. Isn’t that weird?” Ventus says, stepping inside. He reaches a hand out for Vanitas, as if he’d need help stepping over the inch-and-a-half gap between the porch and the wood paneling inside. Vanitas takes it anyways, even though his hands are freezing and kind of clammy.

Ventus doesn’t let go, but he rarely lets go first. Especially not now.

“I was right. The place really is a dump,” Vanitas says. The overpowering smell of _animal_ is the first thing to hit Vanitas. Judging by the way Ventus grimaces, it hits him at the same time. It’s a mix between the smell of dander that would cling to Vanitas’s hands after running it through his hair back when he first moved out to LA and couldn’t find a YMCA to shower in, cat piss, and mildew.

Papers spill over the dining room table and onto the floor, a waterfall of lost decisions. The couch, which Vanitas knows for a _fact_ is made of brown suede because he was the one who picked it out, is covered in clumps of what looks like light fur. On the other side of the couch is a cat tree. An elegant cream-colored cat stares from the top, fluffy gray tail folded neatly over its paws.

That explains the overwhelming smell of cat, at least.

Ventus looks like he wants to pet the damn thing, so Vanitas shoves his hands back into his pockets and lets him half-jog over to where the cat sits. It meows as he approaches, tail flicking up behind it as it stands. With a quiet laugh, Ven grabs the cat and settles it in his arms like he’s cuddling a baby. “She’s beautiful,” he says, awed. “What’s her name?”

“Beats me. Old man must have gotten her long after I left,” Vanitas says, eyeing the cat warily as she starts to purr in Ventus’s arms. He’s always been more of a dog person.

It’s kind of funny, how they always say that Vanitas left when they both know that’s a lie. Vanitas received two presents for his eighteenth birthday: a mocha frappuccino from Starbucks from Ventus, extra mocha sauce, extra whip blended into the body _and_ on top, the way he likes it; and the chance to live in a car for the next six months of his life because the bastard kicked him out of his house.

A car door slams outside, all the louder with the realization that Vanitas didn’t close the door behind himself. Ventus scratches under the cat’s chin, careful to keep her occupied as three more people enter through the front door. Eraqus comes first, followed by Aqua, with Terra being the one to actually close the door behind them all. Aqua pinches her nose shut at the smell, while Terra looks around with clear befuddlement. He approaches the pile of papers on the ground and tries to pick one up, but it sticks to the ground. It isn’t hard to figure out what makes it stick.

“Vanitas, did you really live in this?” Terra asks, pity written all over his stupid face. Vanitas resists the urge to shove him into the backyard and leave him locked out there with the spare furniture the old man probably never bothered to get rid of. Instead, he walks right by Terra and peeks through the blinds. His suspicions are confirmed by a large tarp messily thrown over a pile of what could only be all the furniture from his life back in that desert hell that couldn’t fit in the bungalow.

“It wasn’t this bad when I was here,” Vanitas admits. “The cat is new, and my dog stayed mostly in my room. The rest of the place might have been filthy, but I know how to keep my own spaces clean.”

Ventus would probably call his cleaning habits _obsessive,_  like he has a few times before. Vanitas prefers to call it thorough. Nevermind the way panic claws up his throat whenever he puts off cleaning long enough for dust to gather along the edges of his floorboards.

“I’m sorry,” Aqua says, her voice made into a nasally joke given the way she keeps her nose pinched shut. “All these years, and I had no idea…”

Vanitas waves her off. “Whatever. Can we just get the bed?”

Eraqus leads them back to the old man’s room. Vanitas stops just long enough to peek his head into the room the nurse took over. The desk and the bedsheets are unfamiliar, but a few old posters of Vanitas’s still hang on the walls. The room is noticeably cleaner than everywhere else, the smell coming from within significantly less of a stench and more of an unpleasant odor he’d be able to ignore after five minutes.

Vanitas shuts the door. There’s nothing in there that he could possibly want.

The California King the old man had bought years ago simply because he could still takes up the majority of the room. It’s been stripped of all bedding already, leaving just a slightly-yellowed mattress behind. One side droops down significantly closer than the other, a clear indication of where the old man spent the last… what, six years of his life?

For six years, he laid in that bed and watched the world move on without him.

And now he’s dead.

He died on that bed.

“It’s a corpse mattress,” Vanitas says under his breath, a laugh escaping him. It sounds strained, even to his own ears. Ventus shoots him a worried look, but Vanitas pays him little mind. He laughs again. How could it not be funny? It’s hilarious.

“We’ll need to take this out to the trailer,” Eraqus says. “My back isn’t as good as it used to be, so I doubt I’ll be much help. Terra, Aqua, could you move it?”

“Of course,” Aqua says, nodding. She and Terra go to either side of the corpse mattress, but given how massive the thing is they struggle just to get it off the bedframe and onto its side. There’s no way only two people, even as ridiculously strong as they both are, can deal with something so massively unwieldy.

Ventus has a cat in his arms that he needs to pacify, so Vanitas heads to the middle of the corpse mattress and lifts it up. With Terra on one end, Aqua on the other, and Ventus directing them on how to navigate the thin hallways of the bungalow, they manage to bring the corpse mattress outside.

Eraqus opens the trailer door and Ventus leaves the cat behind. This time, Eraqus is the one directing as the four of them lug the corpse mattress up into the trailer. They push it in as far as it can go - Terra and Aqua pulling, Ventus and Vanitas pushing - but even then, the back sticks out of the trailer by a solid foot.

“We’ll need to flip it so it stands upright,” Eraqus says, sighing. “I hate to ask this, but can you all do that? We can handle the rest of the furniture later.”

Vanitas hops onto the trailer and grabs one end. He bursts out laughing, hands digging into the soft fabric like claws. “A corpse mattress! I can’t believe it,” he says, caught up in hysterical laughter. His chest hurts. A stitch quickly forms in his side as he doubles over, laughing and laughing and laughing like it’ll never end.

The old man died on this mattress, and here they are, trying to flip it over. Like he could ignore the imprint on his life if he didn’t have to see it anymore.

“Vanitas?” Ventus asks, his hand hovering just above Vanitas’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Vanitas laughs harder than he thought was possible. “It’s ridiculous! How can you _not_ laugh?”

December 23rd, the day before Christmas Eve, and here they are with a dead man’s garbage. Simply ridiculous.

“Aqua and I can handle the rest,” Terra says. “Ven, can you…?”

“No, no! It’s fine. I’m fine. Great, even. Better than ever. Let’s flip this corpse mattress, right?” Vanitas says, still giggling. No one looks convinced, but what do they know? He’s great. The old man is dead. He’s free.

They flip the mattress until its standing upright. Now it sticks out of the _top_ of the trailer by a solid foot, but it’s a good thing there’s no cover over it. Sweating from the effort, Vanitas hops back down.

They do get some other pieces of furniture in. The couch covered in cat hair goes, along with a few pieces of the pure white furniture that decorated Vanitas’s room in his earliest memories.

They sort through the expanse of papers on the dining table - mail, it’s all mail, bills and junk ads and things that Vanitas can’t bring himself to think about for much longer.

Eraqus takes the cat home with him.

Vanitas can’t remember what happens the rest of that day.

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tomorrow's my birthday and i'm using it as an opportunity to go hang out in a beach town and pretend the internet doesn't exist for a few days, so i figured i would update before i left! 
> 
> this chapter is a prime reason why i tagged this fic 'i hope you like disney cameos'. my favorite disney cameo is introduced in this chapter! if kingdom hearts canon can make a plot point out of a toy cowboy verbally eviscerating the greatest villain of the series, then i am definitely within my right for some cameos.
> 
> this has some cute but mostly some sad. stares at my hands. i promise there is a happy ending on the horizon. just... the distant horizon.

i.

For the next four years, Vanitas spends his recesses alone. He devours books in the library to learn new words, better words than the ones he had before. He badgers other kids into letting him join their games, soccer and tetherball and basketball and any game where he can win, just to feel the rush of victory. When they refuse (and they often do), he runs himself ragged practicing the most recent judo forms Xehanort taught him.

He gets into trouble sometimes, for breaking things when he loses or for playing dirty. The proctors are dumb, because there’s really no such thing as playing dirty, but he learns when he can push back against something stupid and when he has to go lick his wounds alone so they won’t call Xehanort about his behavior.

No one really likes him, but he doesn’t care. If the other kids are scared of him, then let them be scared.

Ventus is like the mountains lining the desert hell that Vanitas came from. Nothing but a silhouette on the backdrop of his life, colors distorted by the distance. Never close enough to touch, but always in his peripheral vision no matter which way he turns.

But sometimes Ventus will break away from his distant world and wave at him, which is more than the mountains ever gave.

By the time they reach fifth grade, the proctors that once goaded Vanitas into staying on the blacktop while Ventus ran in the field have left, replaced by new staff that don’t remember the boy who once broke someone’s arm in sheer rage. Aqua and Terra move to the middle school, leaving Ventus without the taller, scarier bodyguards that would shoot Vanitas dirty looks anytime he so much as looked in Ventus’s direction on the playground.

They end up in the same class under the supervision of a new teacher. Mr. Radcliffe keeps a keyboard in his classroom so he can sing for them and plasters his walls with clever rhymes and pictures of dogs. Above all, he believes in every single one of his students. Even Vanitas.

“I won’t tell Sensei or my parents if you don’t tell Mister Xehanort,” Ventus whispers to Vanitas on the first day of the new school year. Vanitas considers his offer. On one hand, he doesn’t want to think about how Xehanort will react if he discovers that Vanitas went against his orders. On the other hand is a possibility: no longer being the odd kid out on partner projects, having someone to wait for him when the lunch bell rings and everyone scrambles out to lunch, and having a friend, the way that he’s never had before.

“Deal,” Vanitas says. They shake on it.

Ventus’s hand is so warm.

All the things Vanitas once saw but never experienced come true. Ventus eagerly scrawls their names on group projects, writing down _Ventus and Vanitas_ like they’ve always belonged together. He makes Vanitas sit with him at his favorite table in the cafeteria during lunch. He even goads Vanitas into demonstrating what he’s learned from his judo lessons with Xehanort, comparing and contrasting the ways they use their bodies in the same sport. Ventus approaches him like he’s never had a reason to be afraid of Vanitas, which is the strangest thing of all.

They stage mock matches when the proctors aren’t looking. Vanitas wins more often than not in the beginning, crowing with laughter as Ventus sputters about playing dirty from behind a mouthful of grass. Things change when Ventus slams his arm into Vanitas’s rib cage when he isn’t paying attention. The next thing Vanitas knows, there’s mud in his mouth and Ventus is perched on his back, giggling like a complete idiot. Vanitas flips over and shoves him off, scowling, but he doesn’t try to enact any type of revenge. No one is here to care if Vanitas tries to prove himself.

“You win this time, Ventus. Don’t think it’ll happen again,” he snarls.

Ventus keeps giggling, covered in delight and grass stains. “Yeah, right! Don’t be a sore loser, Vanitas. Now come on, my mom packed me Cheetos for lunch that I didn’t eat earlier. I’ll give you some.”

And he does.

After about three months, their teacher laughs when he sees them. “You two are thick as thieves!” he says happily, causing Vanitas to tense up and shove the chocolate he most definitely did _not_ steal from the pocket of Ventus’s backpack when he wasn’t looking deeper into the cubby of his desk. Friends or no friends, chocolate is chocolate. Ventus has more than enough to go around.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ventus asks, looking way more panicked than he has any right to be.

“It means that you’re best friends,” Mr. Radcliffe explains. Vanitas stiffens. This guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. They’re friends, maybe, but best friends is a step too far. There’s no way Ventus would ever want to be best friends with someone who hurt him the way Vanitas di-

“Oh, I get it! I guess I have three best friends now.” Ventus lists a name off on each finger. “Terra, Aqua, and now Vanitas!”

“There you go! Best friends are pretty nice to have, aren’t they?” Mr. Radcliffe asks.

Ventus nods. “The best!”

Slowly, as to not attract any additional attention to himself, Vanitas slips the chocolate he took into Ventus’s desk, which thankfully is right within arm’s reach. Ventus is too busy grinning to notice.

Mr. Radcliffe eventually leaves, telling them to go outside and enjoy the sunshine for a little while. Having no reason to stay inside, they do. They walk around the field, careful to avoid the frantic pack of kids chasing after a soccer ball. Ventus mentions something about being too sore from his judo lesson the day before to want to play, but all Vanitas can think about is how he went from having no friends to having a best friend.

If Xehanort found out, he would be so disappointed.

“Xehanort says that there’s no point in having friends,” Vanitas says. “He said it didn’t matter that I didn’t have any. Those bonds would only ever get in the way of my goals and drag me down.”

“That’s not true!” Ventus says, stomping his foot like somehow emphasizes his point better. “Friends are supposed to help you get your goals. Without Terra and Aqua to help me, I could never be a judoka. We learn from each other. We help each other.”

Vanitas spends hours practicing his forms in the mirror, throwing invisible enemies over and over under Xehanort’s careful eye. He may not have sparring partners the way Ventus does, but that doesn’t make him any less of a judoka. Xehanort is too old to spar himself, but he still knows the forms. He still guides Vanitas.

“Shut up!” Vanitas spits, overcome by a sudden anger. “What do you know? I can be strong on my own, too! I don’t need people, and I don’t need _you!_ Xehanort even said so! He doesn’t need anyone either!”

Ventus freezes and Vanitas can feel him slip through his grasp, becoming that mountain on the horizon once more. He doesn’t need Ventus, but…

“We’re supposed to be best friends,” Ventus says, gritting his teeth. “And best friends don’t say that to each other. If Xehanort says that kind of stuff to you, then he’s wrong! Dead wrong!”

“You can’t say that about him!” Vanitas shouts, barely able to keep himself in place. His body thrums, heartbeat pounding in his ears and fists curled at his sides. Thumb over the knuckles and not hiding inside them, the same way Xehanort taught him to punch. Ventus needs to know how wrong he is, even if Vanitas has to beat it into him.

But what Ventus says next freezes him in his tracks.

“I don’t like Xehanort! I don’t like how he makes you walk home alone every day, I don’t like how he still won’t let you practice with us even though Sensei said it was okay, and I don’t like how you’ve never had a friend before me!”

Vanitas doesn’t go through with punching Ventus.

He stands there, shaking, as Ventus glares at a man who isn’t there. His legs feel weak and a pressure builds up behind his eyes. Xehanort only ever sneers when Vanitas cries, so seeing Ventus’s face fall into horror feels all wrong.

A pair of arms wrap around Vanitas’s waist and a chin hooks onto his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” Ventus murmurs. “I don’t want you to cry.”

It’s not like he’s never been hugged before. Xehanort doesn’t like touching people for the most part, but there have been a few times, usually after Vanitas has successfully completed a difficult technique or when he gets the top test score in class, that he’ll hug Vanitas.

It’s always brief, but it matters. Even if Vanitas draws away after a few seconds and feels invisible spiders crawling along his back, it matters.

Vanitas doesn’t return the hug. He never has, not even to Xehanort.

But he’s warm all over, and if Vanitas sniffles and tilts his head until their temples connect, then Ventus keeps it a sweet, shared secret.

 

* * *

 

ii.

Eraqus offers to let Vanitas stay at his house while they sort everything out. He lives alone and the place is definitely big enough to let himself and Ventus stay there in separate, fully furnished rooms, but Vanitas refuses. Ventus’s parents don’t mind him staying in their tiny home, even if they won’t stop badgering their son to let Vanitas take his bed because _you can’t let guests sleep on the floor_ , so it’s fine, really. He’s not even fully on the floor.

Staying with Eraqus would have let him grunt at the man in person about next steps that he doesn’t care about, but now he gets to grunt at Eraqus over a shitty phone connection instead.

Ventus loves Christmas, loves it enough to make it last two days. He’s not as big on gifts as Aqua is, who determinedly spends the week before the holidays making a new trinket for every important person in her life, but every year Ventus won’t shut up about spending Christmas Eve in pajamas with his family, watching holiday movies and playing board games with relatives he only sees once a year.

The only thing Vanitas ever did on Christmas Eve was lug the old man’s battered Christmas tree out of the garage and decorate it. It was Vanitas’s duty each year to sort through whatever ornaments the bastard gathered over his life and make the tree look somewhat festive. He was a child when he first volunteered to decorate it on his own, eager to make something that Xehanort would be proud of.

It wasn’t always bad. There were years where the evening quiet brought nothing but peace. With the television playing old cartoons, Vanitas would use its dim light to sort through boxes until he found the Christmas lights. Once those were strung throughout the tree’s plastic branches, he’d use that glow to find the ornaments he wanted to hang. He’d swell with pride as he transformed the tree, plastic as it was, from barren to beautiful.

After a few years, it started to feel lonely. The tree stopped looking the way Vanitas remembered it once did.

Then the old man got sick, and there wasn’t any point in setting up a tree if he wasn’t going to come out of his room to see it.

Vanitas was supposed to relinquish the next two days to Ventus, so Ventus could spend them entrenched in his own traditions. Vanitas was supposed to have gone to the old man’s door, talked the nurse into letting him in, and lay out every single grievance he’s built up against the bastard over the past two decades. He could lick his wounds in the safety of Ventus’s bedroom that night, curled up on the twin of the air mattress Ventus uses whenever he stays over at Vanitas’s apartment.

And maybe then, just maybe, Vanitas and the old man could spend Christmas Day figuring out how to re-shape the bond that almost choked the life out of him.

Instead he gets this: crouching in the corner of Ventus’s bedroom, having a whispered argument with Eraqus over the phone. He made Ventus swear on his life not to tell his parents. He’d be crushed under the weight of their sympathetic stares if they knew. Hence the need for secrecy.

“Look, I don’t _care_ if he gets cremated or not, Eraqus. Just sign the damn papers and get everything settled.”

A sigh crackles in his ear. “Vanitas, I’m not his next-of-kin. I don’t have the authority for this kind of paperwork. It needs your signature.” Turns out the bastard _didn’t_ make Eraqus his next-of-kin. Vanitas wishes he would have.

“Can’t it wait?”

“The funerary home isn’t open tomorrow. I’m surprised it’s even open today.”

Vanitas drags a hand over his face, barely able to suppress his groan. “School starts on the third. I won’t have time to rush back and forth between here and LA to deal with paperwork and what color the funeral flowers are supposed to be.”

“That’s not how it works, Vanitas-”

“-Why can’t you just leave me out of this? I don’t even care if he has a funeral!” Vanitas hisses.

“He was your _father_ , Vanitas! You have to show your respect,” Eraqus says.

“You know what would have been great? If the bastard ever respected me. I know you were his war buddy or whatever, but frankly, I couldn’t give less of a shit about any of this. Leave me out of it.”

Another sigh, even heavier than the previous one, crackles in Vanitas’s ear. When Eraqus speaks, it’s with the tone that makes Vanitas realize why Ventus and his friends still call him _Mister_ , even after all these years. “You _will_ come down here today, and you _will_ sign these papers. You have to do something with his remains. This is not a situation where you are afforded a choice, Vanitas.”

The only reason why Vanitas doesn’t scream is because Ventus is on the other side of that closed door, playing marbles with his nephew and probably giggling in delight as the little kid marvels about how there’s toothpaste inside the glass balls or whatever. Something tooth-rottingly domestic that Vanitas would rather shoot himself in the foot than disrupt.

He misses his dogs. His neighbors won’t have a problem watching them, since Void and Gear are better behaved than the hellhound they call part of their ohana, but he wants Void sleeping on his feet and Gear sprawled out in the sunlight that filters through the windows of his apartment.

It still feels impossible to grasp, the idea that he’s currently arguing over the old man’s corpse. Nothing feels real. Maybe if his dogs were here, he could run his hands through their short fur and feel like he’s still tethered to the earth.

But they’re not. He’s here. They’re not.

He’s just a stranger, a boarder in a house that isn’t his, in a town that has never been home.

“Fine. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Text me the fucking address.” He doesn’t bother to wait for Eraqus’s reply before ending the call and shoving his phone back in his pocket.

He shoves his feet into the fuzzy slippers Ventus’s mother insists he wear in the house lest he _let his foot cramp from the cold, cucciolo_ , slips his keys into his pocket, and emerges into the chaos that is Ventus’s extended family. He carefully steps over the marbles scattered across the living room carpet, ignoring the two pairs of ocean eyes on his back as he moves. He nods to two of Ventus’s aunts as they chatter on the couch and dodges the niece that almost collides into his thigh as she tears through the house. The grandfather and various other relatives affixed to the tv pay him no mind.

Ventus’s mother shoves a small bowl of strawberry yogurt and a spoon in his hand when she spots him, but it isn’t enough to keep him in one place. What is enough is the hand on his wrist, and Ventus’s quiet mutter of, “Where are you going?”

Spoken as if Vanitas had any right to be here in the first place.

“Paperwork,” Vanitas says, shooting a glance at Ventus’s mother. She turns back to the stove, probably preparing the biggest dishes for dinner that night and nibbling on a piece of cheese. She’s not traditional enough to spend the day fasting.

“I’ll go with you,” Ventus says, smart enough to catch onto what kind of paperwork Vanitas would need to sign on Christmas Eve.

His mother is not so lucky. He doesn’t exactly blame her; she has far fewer pieces of the puzzle than Ventus and no preview on the box to know what to look for. “You young people never quit, do you? Please, put your feet up and rest sometime soon!”

“We’ll be back before dinner, promise!” Ventus says, flashing the same smile that led Vanitas to agree to staying here in the first place, back when he first posed the idea a lifetime ago.

“Be safe!” she calls as they trade out their slippers for regular shoes. They’re out the door not much later, and it isn’t until Vanitas is fishing his keys back out of his pocket does he realize that he’s still holding a half-eaten bowl of yogurt.

“This is yours now,” Vanitas says, sliding the bowl across the top of his car. Ventus’s mom wouldn’t blame Vanitas for breaking the bowl if something happened to it, so there’s no point in being careful. Besides, Ventus’s reaction time is quick enough to snatch the bowl before it falls off the edge and shatters on the driveway.

Ventus looks down at it, frowning. “I don’t even like strawberry yogurt.”

“Which one do you like less - strawberry yogurt, or disappointing your mother?”

Ventus shoves a spoonful of the stuff in his mouth as Vanitas unlocks his car. Vanitas puts the address Eraqus gave him into his phone and sets off. The radio blares advertisements for places Vanitas never wants to visit again as they drive, offset only by the quiet clinking of metal against ceramic and the gentle rumble of tires rolling over scattered potholes.

The funerary home looks kind of… cutesy, at least from the outside. A large sign covered in pretty cursive announces that it’s a mortuary, but without that lone sign someone could easily mistake it for a real estate office.

Ventus leaves the now-empty bowl in Vanitas’s car. He can’t find the energy to complain about the few scraps that cling to the edges going rancid in the winter sun. Instead they emerge into the lot, which is empty save for lone silver minivan that Ventus’s eyes linger on for far longer than necessary.

“Mister Eraqus is here too?” Ventus asks, slowly putting the pieces together. For all the Organic Chemistry classes he’s consistently failed throughout his college career, he can be smart when he tries. “That’s why you stayed in my room earlier. You were on the phone with him again.”

“Congratulations, you solved the mystery. Do you want a prize? Because I don’t have one.”

Ventus bites his lip, trying, but mostly failing, to hide his grin. “I should have figured. Who would ever be dumb enough to give you a prize?”

“Ventus, that was a weak retort and you know it.”

Ventus sighs as he hops up the steps and opens the door for Vanitas. Can’t think of a decent comeback, but still every bit of the gentlemen his mother would want him to be. Vanitas tries to entertain that line of thinking a little further, but every thought leaves his mind when he sees Eraqus sitting at a table with a woman just as gray-haired as he is.

“Oh, you must be Vanitas! Nice to meet you,” she says, lifting herself out of her chair and walking over to him. “My name is-” and whatever she says next is lost in the static buzzing in his ears.

“I’m Ventus, but everyone just calls me Ven. Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Ventus says, dragging Vanitas back into the present. He shakes the woman’s hand and Vanitas struggles to pay attention as she leads them over to a small table. There’s a single fabric rose sitting in a glass vase in the middle, casting a shadow over the stack of paperwork she points to.

She explains something about what to do with the body and how a signature allows for the mortuary to help arrange the funeral service, but every syllable that leaks out of her bleeds into the next. He signs where she points to and spends more time shooting Eraqus dirty looks than he does actually trying to comprehend what’s going on. Ventus sits quietly next to him, hands folded in his lap like a good boy and eyes patiently trained on the woman whenever she talks.

They get through the packet of paperwork without much fuss. Vanitas stands up, shaking the cramp out of his hand from initialing so many pages. “Am I done here?” he asks, cutting off whatever the woman was about to say next.

“Here, yes,” Eraqus says, and his voice is much easier to pay attention to than the woman’s, “But we still have the funeral arrangements to plan. The closest veteran’s cemetery is...”

And there goes Vanitas’s focus, lost to the winds once more.

When he was younger, the old man used to go on and on about stories from the war. He’d speak of blood spilled on the battlefield and comrades dying in his arms, of weapons designed to rend apart as much flesh as possible and the kind of gore that could only live in a desecrated medical tent. He would go on and on until Vanitas’s hands were clapped over his ears and he was screaming, begging for the man to stop because he couldn’t handle it any longer.

The old man wouldn’t pay him any mind. He’d just keep talking as if Vanitas wasn’t even there. ( _Except he only ever told those stories when Vanitas was standing captive, even as the years dragged on and the old man grew to find the sound of his own voice echoing through the bungalow to be his only solace_ ).

It got easier, once Vanitas learned how to tune of his constant droning. Never wholly better, but easier.

Vanitas holds a hand up, interrupting whatever monologue Eraqus launched into. “Look. Just tell me now - is there anything else I have to do to make sure his corpse stays in the ground where it belongs? I don’t care what happens to the dump he died in. I don’t care how the funeral goes. I don’t care where or when it is. I don’t care if it _happens_. Let me leave.”

The old man is dead, and still he dictates Vanitas’s life.

“You can’t talk to Mister Eraqus that way!” Ventus snaps. The only thing that could make him angry is disrespecting someone he loves. His words feel like barbed wire around Vanitas’s heart, but he pushes it away. He can’t indulge Ventus, because if he does then he’ll never get the answer he needs.

“I have school. I have a life to get back to, and I can’t waste it all cleaning up after his messes,” Vanitas continues. “You’re retired. You still live here. Can’t you take care of it?”

 _You actually loved him_ goes unsaid. It still makes bile raise in his throat, the thought that someone who is so highly respected and seen as such a paragon of goodness cared so deeply for a person who was anything but. It feels like betrayal from someone who never had any loyalty to Vanitas in the first place.

“Vanitas, you can’t say stuff like that! Apologize,” Ventus insists. Vanitas can’t look at him, remembering that his support only goes so far. At the end of the day, Ventus always has to make a choice, and that choice has always remained the same.  

Ventus has a family to go back to, and all Vanitas has ever had was a specter of a father and sunlight that’ll never stay.

Eraqus sighs bitterly. He is so old, so tired. He saw every atrocity that the old man ever did, but still held on to some shred of kindness deep within himself. He never married, never fathered children of his own, but Ventus and his friends must have been all the children he ever wanted.

“You’re right, Vanitas. You should focus on your studies. I’d imagine I can handle the rest, especially regarding the funeral. I’ve been to my fair share of them. Should anything else come up-”

“-You’ll call me. Great, got it. I’m leaving. Ventus, do whatever you want.” Vanitas leaves without giving them any time to respond, selfishly hoping for a pair of footsteps to echo his own. If Ventus decides to go with Eraqus, then Vanitas can find some way to amuse himself for the rest of the day. Maybe go to a Starbucks and use up their free wi-fi to watch Youtube videos or something. He could call his neighbors and see how Void and Gear are faring.

He could go back to Ventus’s house, shove his things back into his duffle bag, and head back to his apartment in Los Angeles. Ventus would be angry, but he’s already angry.

The door slams open by the time Vanitas reaches his car. Ventus sprints to his side, too much of a runner to be winded by such a short distance. “You didn’t have to be such a jerk, you know.”

“Eraqus didn’t have to stand by and let the bastard do whatever he wanted, but that didn’t stop him. I don’t owe either of them anything, Ventus.”

“He didn’t know how bad it was, and you know that! I’ve been your best friend since we were ten, and I _still_ don’t know everything he put you through! Everything Mister Eraqus does now, he’s doing for your sake!” Ventus says, slamming his hand on the car door and getting in Vanitas’s face. He’s strung out on worry and a deep-seated loyalty that can never be torn out of him; Vanitas knows that much. It should feel like blisters on his skin, or guilt clawing his throat. The fact that it doesn’t feel like anything is almost enough to make him scared.

He knows better to call Ventus out on that lie - everything Eraqus does now is for the old man, not him. Just like it’s always been. Always second best, even when he had no one to compete with. Even when he won. He’s free now and it _still_ isn’t good enough.

“I’m _tired_ , Ventus. I’m tired of doing the old man’s chores. I’m going to rot if I stay here, don’t you get that?”

He already feels like he’s rotting, pieces of himself falling away to nothing. He’s felt that on occasion long before the old man died, but the fact that he’s dead and Vanitas feels nothing only makes the dissonance all the more jarring.

His eyelids droop. Suddenly, he wants nothing more than to crawl into his giant bed, let his dogs sprawl over his legs, and be dead to the world.

He wants to go home, but he’s not entirely sure if he has one.

That seems to do Ventus in. He backs off, frowning. “I’m being kind of a jerk, too. You’re going through something I can’t even imagine, and here I am, yelling at you. My mom would be so mad.”

“You didn’t tell her what happened, did you?”

“What? No, of course not. I promised you, didn’t I?”

“Good. I don’t want to deal with that right now.”

Ventus looks away, studying his filthy sneakers like they hold the secrets of the universe. He’s kind, too kind, even when he’s not. Too quick to back down. Too untouched by the tar that stains Vanitas.

Selfishly, Vanitas grabs his hand. Warm, but the warmth ends where their palms connect. Ventus shifts their grip until their fingers are locked together. “Do you want to come back to my house? If you want to go back to LA, I wouldn’t blame you.” He looks up, a promise of the sea and forever-fleeting sunlight. “But you’re always welcome here. My family would love to have you celebrate Christmas with us. You know that, right?”

“I know. I can spare another day or two, I guess.”

He’ll never be more than a guest, but he can abuse their hospitality for a little longer, maybe.

That night, Vanitas looks at the boy laying no more than five feet away from him, his face illuminated by the screen he holds in the air. It’s not the sunlight refracting off the waves, but Ventus can make even the cold blankness of an empty screen at night look beautiful.

He’s so close, so why does Vanitas miss him?

He knows exactly what he wants. He wants Ventus to throw his stupid phone to the side, lift up the corner of his blanket, and let Vanitas lose himself in the physicality he sometimes daydreams about during particularly boring lectures. It wouldn’t be hard to get. All he would need to do is ask, and Ventus would eagerly give him anything that could possibly provide some small measure of comfort.

He could ask for one kiss and Ventus would give him as many as it would take to heal the patchwork damage to his heart.

But there’s no patchwork, just a void that seems to stretch out even further than before whenever Vanitas bothers to look at it. Vanitas stands on the edge of it, skirting it like the shores of the lake full of jagged stones he once went to on the edges of that lonely desert. If he gets too close, he’ll fall in. Anything could. Everything would.

He wants Ventus. He’s spent more of his life wanting him than not.

It wouldn’t be right. Not now.

Ventus catches him watching and rolls over a little more. Just enough to face him, the light from his phone defining the sweep of his eyelashes over his cheek. He doesn’t smile. “Need something?”

Even if it wouldn’t be right, Vanitas has been, and always will be, selfish. “Room for one more up there?”

Ventus blinks his shock away and shimmies back as he lifts up his blanket, clear permission for Vanitas to come join. Vanitas crawls into the space made for him with ease. The bed is small for one grown college kid, let alone a grown college kid and a man who had his boyhood ripped from his being over the span of two days, but they make it work.

Ventus is warm from head to toe, like he always is.

Vanitas is warm too, pressed flush against him, but it still doesn’t feel the way it should. The pressure against his chest does nothing to solve the pressure within.

Nothing is right.

 

* * *

 

iii.

 _Let’s get boba! There’s a matcha place I’d really like to try._ Two emojis - a cup of steaming green tea and a smiling face - appear in the following text.

Then, following shortly after: _I end class at three today. Are you free any time after that?_

Vanitas could easily not answer. He keeps his read receipts off, so if Xion texts him again he could lie and say that he never saw her first message. He doesn’t owe this overeager freshman anything, not when he’s a junior and has a lot more on his plate to worry about besides some pointless G.E. midterm.

Until he thinks of the girl who sat him down a little over a month ago. The one with the blood red hair and the kind face - the same face that decorates half the banners on the main path of campus.

 _Let the good times roar!_ Her picture, perfect smile and high cheekbones covered in blue and gold paint, declares. He’s seen her face on a few A-frames as well, advertising women’s volleyball games that people mostly go to for the free t-shirts and coupons to Chik-Fil-A.

The girl in his memories looks more like the one on the A-frame, arms folded over her chest and determination shining in her eyes.

“Anyone who looks at you and Ven can tell how much you care about each other,” she had said, unafraid of the way Vanitas legitimately tried to kill her with his glare alone, “I only met him this year and even I can tell that much. But don’t you think your world should be bigger than only him?”

She knew about the old man, at least in passing. She was one of the countless people who messaged him to offer meaningless condolences, because she was the kind of person who actually cared about what people posted on Facebook. She didn’t need a status update to tell her that Ventus was all he had left.

Or really, all Vanitas ever had in the first place.

More than Aqua’s anger or Terra’s steadfast sympathy, it is Kairi’s words that still echo in Vanitas’s mind. Those same words are why his phone doesn’t light up with the same frequency it used to.

Maybe the weekly meetings with his therapist where he continued to ignore her suggestions to make friends with his classmates has something to do with his decision as well. Minnie didn’t get to be a doctor by being an idiot indulging the whims of some asshole twenty-something like Vanitas, after all. Phrases like _attachment issues_ and _it sounds like you’re afraid of letting people in, dearie_ echo in his mind. She doesn’t know about everything that’s happened with Ventus, but would she approve of Vanitas’s choice? Or would his actions only add validate her buzzwords further?

Those phrases, combined with Kairi’s firm voice, are enough to get him to type out a reply.

_Yeah, I don’t have anything._

_Great!_ Another pair of emojis - a dog and another smile. _Meet at the Bruin Bear?_

They do, under the afternoon sun. Vanitas sits on a stone bench near the giant metal bear that stands in the heart of campus, glinting gold and black in the light. At this point in the day, it’d probably burn him if he tried to touch it.

A pair of black Vans come to a stop in front of him. Vanitas looks up from his phone to see Xion smiling pleasantly at him, dressed in all black just like every other time he’s seen her. “Hello, Vanitas,” she says.

Vanitas gets to his feet. He’s not tall by any means, not at all like Terra or even Aqua, but even he towers over this tiny scrap of a person. “Yeah, yeah. This place is in Westwood, right? Let’s go.”

“Oh, yes!” She falls into step beside him, passing by the student union and starting on the path that leads to their sad excuse for a college town. Westwood is a neighborhood dying a slow death, just like it has been for much longer than Vanitas has known of its existence. The restaurants are cheap and the City Target is overpriced, but they make do with what they have.

Vanitas thinks briefly of the old man. He would have hated it here, hated the crowds and the empty retail buildings with the same intensity. Did he even know that Vanitas was accepted to this school - did Eraqus tell him? Or did his nurse, after Vanitas called his cell and demanded the old man’s tax information so he could apply for financial aid?

Would he be proud? And if he was, would that pride be a boon or a bane?

“Vanitas?” Xion asks, pulling him out of his thoughts. “Are… are you okay?”

“What?” Vanitas says. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, you didn’t answer my question,” she says softly.

“...Which was.”

“Have you been to Matcha Sip before?”

It isn’t rocket science to figure out that’s where they’re heading. Vanitas doesn’t recognize the name, which feels strange. He may have been an actual student for less than a year at this point, but he’s spent the better part of five haunting this campus and its surrounding neighborhood. Even when he lived in Santa Monica, himself and his two dogs sharing the shed in some old man’s backyard off California Avenue and 19th Street after scraping together enough money for a less mobile place to sleep at night, he spent so much time in this area.

Now he has a one-bedroom place all to himself. Though his neighbors yell constantly and he wakes up every morning to countless rows of tombstones, it’s more of a home than he’s ever had before.

“No. It sounds like another hipster popup. Where is it?”

They cross the street, finally entering the strange stretch of campus where the graduate buildings bleed into the facsimile of administrative buildings that let Westwood pretend it’s more than a shopping center.

“Um… I don’t really know the street names, but it’s by Starbucks.”

That isn’t helpful. Vanitas scowls. “Which Starbucks?”

“There are multiple!?”

Vanitas scoffs. “Of course there are multiple. You’re probably thinking of the one on Weyburn. The big one, right? Next to the movie theater?”

Xion beams, glad that they’ve finally reached some sort of conclusion. “Yes, that one!”

He knows which building it must have moved into. That building has housed four different stores during his time here. Given its track record, this one probably won’t last much longer. “It’s new. Used to be a shaved ice place.”

“Wow. I had no idea,” Xion says with absolutely zero sarcasm. Her sheer earnestness stumps him. Everything about her is so _sincere._ She speaks softly, but with a quiet determination that leaves Vanitas thinking that maybe she isn’t so bad.

He lets her chatter for the rest of the walk, about the classes she likes, the ones she doesn’t, and how awful her department dean is. That gets a laugh out of Vanitas; out of everyone he knows, he’s the only person who doesn’t completely hate his dean.

Quite the opposite, actually. Yzma keeps only one foot in reality at any given moment and she spends most days hell-bent on finding the best way to torture her faculty, but she’s not all bad.

Two days into the new quarter, she sat Vanitas down in her office and laid out everything he needed to do in order to update his financial aid status and stay in school. She knew this school well enough to know whose pockets to dig into for help.

Not bad at all.

They reach the store. The outside is the same crisp white its past four incarnations have sported, but the inside has transformed into an Instagrammer’s paradise. Succulents and needlessly complicated wood carvings line one of the walls, where a large hashtag is _conveniently_ placed right next to Vanitas’s head. The other part of the wall is covered in a giant infographic about matcha: where it comes from, how its made, and more stuff Vanitas can’t be bothered to read.

His clients would _love_ this place, he realizes with no small amount of disgust.

Xion goes to the counter and orders. She must have looked up the menu online before they met up. Vanitas frowns. Just how excited was she to come here? He lingers a few feet behind her and studies the menu hanging over the barista’s head, unable to tell the difference between ceremonial matcha and regular matcha.

The deciding factor is that he doesn’t feel like paying six dollars for boba when he can get something for three seventy-five a block away, so he settles on the regular option. Still overpriced, but not as overpriced as it could be.

“This place is so cute,” Xion says, joining his side as they wait for their orders. “I really like it.”

“I give it six months,” Vanitas replies.

“That’s not very optimistic.”

“It’s not. It’s realistic.”

Vanitas wonders, not for the first time, if she would keep talking to him if not for his dogs. He’s shocked out of the thought by the sound of her laughter. Quiet, hidden behind her hand, but clearly there.

“You remind me a little of my best friend. Well, one of them. You’re nothing like Axel.”

“You’re not talking about that skateboarding poser you were with last time, are you?”

Xion’s laugh gets a little louder. “That’s the one! Though,” she pauses, giving him a very poignant look that he can’t quite decipher, gaze lingering on the star tattoo peeking out from under his t-shirt sleeve,  “I’m not sure if you have any right to say that.”

It takes a solid thirty seconds for her comment to sink in. Once it does, Vanitas’s jaw drops open and he gapes at her like an idiot. She’s abandoned hiding her giggles behind her hand, laughing freely at whatever stupid face Vanitas must be making.

Vanitas feels himself grinning. Maybe this girl isn’t so bad after all. “I’ll give you that one.”

The barista calls out their numbers and Xion picks up both of their drinks. They sit down at an empty table the same color of wood as the giant Instagram-bait set up by the entrance. The chairs are so high that Xion’s feet don’t touch the ground.

Xion starts to say something, but her words are drowned out by a creaking voice that crawls down Vanitas’s spine and spreads across his skin like spiders. Suddenly he’s not in Los Angeles, he’s five and burning under the desert sun as the old man forces him to wait outside in the dry August heat until he _learns how to stop being so weak,_ _boy_.

Then he’s seventeen and standing in the old man’s bedroom, scalding hot tea setting his flesh ablaze because he didn’t make his tea right, again, and he’s _obviously making it wrong just to spite an old man who isn’t well enough to walk to the kitchen himself_ -

-A hand finds its way to his arm and he rips it off-

-And then he comes back to himself, muscles trembling as cold liquid drips down his shirt and stains his jeans green.

He whips his head around, searching for the source of that voice that he shouldn’t exist anymore, and finds an older man standing by the counter looking at him with worry. He looks nothing like the bastard. He’s just a person.

Wood splinters cover Vanitas’s shoes and Xion has backed up several feet away from the chaos, drink gripped in her hand like a lifeline. The table they sat at now lays on the floor in pieces.

Yells sound from all over the store, coming from panicked customers and shocked employees, but the loudest scream tears its way out of Vanitas’s throat. He forces himself to quiet down, flexing his hands in and out of fists the way Minnie taught him to whenever he gets overwhelmed.

Some employee - a manager, by the looks of it - comes over to them. She looks tired. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you and your friend to leave,” she says, carefully stepping over the wreckage at Vanitas’s feet. “Now.”

Xion mutters an apology with a nod and goes to the door, patiently waiting for Vanitas to push through the lead in his body and move his damn feet. Eyes bore into his back as he leaves, cold gazes and spiders and dust clogging his nose until he can’t breathe.

Except there is no dust here, just asphalt and smog in the air from the never ending traffic.

“Are you okay?” Xion asks softly once they’re outside. “Did… did I say something?”

Vanitas shakes his head, feeling hollow inside. There are pieces of him still missing, swallowed by the void in his mind, but enough of him remains to selfishly crave Ventus’s comfort more than anything else.

Ventus would give it to him. He’d drop everything - ignore homework, skip lectures - and spend the rest of the day curled in the small gap between Vanitas and the dog beds taking ownership of his mattress. And Vanitas would be happy to indulge him, ta-

 _-You’ll suffocate him_ , Aqua bites out.

 _Aqua lit my way back home, but she could never be my only light,_  Terra reminds him.

 _Our worlds are too big for just one person to fill_ , Kairi declares.

 _Try to have one new conversation a week. The more you talk to others, the better chance you have of finding a new friend,_ Minnie says, always sweet, never scolding.

It’d be so easy, to make Ventus come running the way he wants him to. The paltry barriers standing between them are nothing.

Xion still stands there, eyes wide and worried, a twilight evening on two legs. “Vanitas?”

“It wasn’t you,” Vanitas says. “Thought I heard a ghost is all.”

She doesn’t react with fear or suspicion. She simply accepts it with a solemn nod. That’s the strange thing. Most people would have left by now.

She stays.

“Do you want to go home?” she asks, giving him an out. “I wouldn’t be hurt.” This girl is kind, but not in the way that lets her heart bleed out over anyone she meets. She has a strength in her that Vanitas doesn’t quite understand, something forged from a fire he has yet to see.

She reminds him a little of himself, on his better days. “I guess burying myself under my dogs doesn’t sound so bad.” She nods, and a thought strikes him. “You want to see them again, don’t you? Want to tag along?”

Her face brightens. “I’d love to!”

They stop by the Chevron at Xion’s insistence. She buys him a chocolate ice cream there - not the icing on the cake she loves the most, whatever that means, but not a bad consolation prize.

They sit on the floor of his apartment, Xion embroiled in a game of tug-of-war with Gear and Void napping against her feet while Vanitas eats his popsicle and listens to her laugh. It isn’t Ventus curled against him, breath on his neck and whispered comforts in his ear, but it’s.

It’s not bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> meet dr minnifer (minnie) mouse, MD and PhD in psychology. she specializes in therapy for teens and young adults and is one half of an incredibly famous power couple on campus. she and her husband are filthy rich and donate way too much money to the school vanitas goes to, but refuse to let the school name a building after them (and the school has offered, a lot). her and michael are so widely loved that they cannot eat out in public without people interrupting their meal to greet and thank them. they run robotic camps for teens every summer. michael met riku there and saw a lot of potential in him, and even though riku doesn't like robotics anymore the mouses pay for riku's tuition AND housing. they have him over for dinner every thursday.
> 
> the more u know.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back at it again, with another chapter. this one, like the last chapter, is on the longer side! what can i say. i like christmas scenes. 
> 
> atla, nis, and i were discussing eraqus last night and like. i'm paraphrasing what atla said but eraqus failed vanitas pretty much 100% as an adult who SHOULD HAVE SEEN the signs of what was going on there, but also was very much a secondary supportive parental figure to three kids who all turned out fine. add some bias in against vanitas for acting out in a lot of spectacularly shitty ways and it was easy for eraqus to not connect the dots in a way that he probably should have. vanitas talks about it a little bit here, but it DEFINITELY gets expounded on later on in more detail.
> 
> as always, thank you for reading and thank you to everyone who has commented! big special thanks to nis and atla, as always, for letting me spout meta at you both over my own fanfic at like. 11pm at night. luv u.

ii.

Ventus celebrates Christmas twice every year: Christmas Eve belongs to the family that made him, and Christmas Day goes to the family he made.

Vanitas hates Christmas. The old man thought most holidays were a waste of time, but he indulged Vanitas once he was old enough to realize that most kids woke up one day a year to presents under a tree.

Most kids probably didn’t wake up to an empty house because their parent had to go to the grocery store and pick up food because the milk had gone bad again and they only had cereal to eat, or wait until three in the afternoon to open presents because wrapping them always came as an afterthought, but that took much longer for Vanitas to realize.

Christmas is stressful. Always has been.

But his Christmas Eve was warm, and much less bitter than it was sweet. He didn’t expect to get any presents - why would he, how could he, a sojourner in a foreign land - but he couldn’t deny the tension that drew him tight every time he saw Ventus’s little niece dutifully hand out presents to everyone but him, with Ventus’s older brother and sister-in-law eagerly cheering her on. At least a dozen people were crowded in that living room, packed tight between a nativity scene much larger than a nativity scene ever needed to be and the gaudiest Christmas tree Vanitas ever saw. It felt like he wasn’t even there.

Ventus’s parents apologized profusely, since they didn’t know Vanitas would be spending the actual day with them, but that didn’t do much to dull the ache. It’s fine, he had insisted to them then and still insists now.

This Christmas day is different from the residual stress of his Christmases past. Vanitas returns to the world of the waking slowly, blinking heavy eyelids only to see the sea filtered through his eyelashes. For a moment, he’s eighteen and waking up to the sight of the waves from illegally parking his car overnight on the beach again.

Until he blinks and realizes Ventus is staring at him, a soft smile lighting his way back to reality.

“Merry Christmas,” Ventus says. His voice is light; he must have been awake for a while.

“We already had Christmas,” Vanitas grumbles, his own voice full of enough gravel to make him clear his throat.

“But you celebrate Christmas today. Besides, I haven’t given you your present yet.”

Vanitas gets ready to make a comment about how the only present he got was a dead parent and a tragic backstory so over-the-top that it makes him want to vomit, but the soft look in Ventus’s eyes strangle the words in his throat. A hand finds its way to his face, thumb stroking the stubble lining his cheek. It should be killing him inside, to have Ventus be so soft with him, so intimate. He should be set ablaze.

He’s not. He’s nothing.

“I’m happy you decided to stay,” Ventus says. “I kind of hoped you would. I’m sick of you spending Christmas alone.”

It would be so easy, Vanitas thinks.

Nothing in his life ever comes easily.

He covers Ventus’s hand with his own, squeezing just enough to shape a silent promise that Ventus isn’t doing anything wrong as he pulls it away. With no small amount of effort, Vanitas rolls over and slowly gets to his feet. He can practically feel Ventus’s eyes searing the back of his shirt, but he forces himself to ignore the sensation.

“I’m going to shower. You’re leaving for Eraqus’s soon, right?”

“ _We_ are,” Ventus corrects him. “But we don’t have to be there until ten. It’s only seven. We can go back to sleep for a little while.”

A translation conveniently runs through Vanitas’s mind like subtitles scrolling along the bottom of a screen: _Come back to bed. Stay with me._

Too easy.

“You can. I feel gross.”

Vanitas grabs his things out of the duffle bag shoved in the corner, clothes spilling out the top and onto the floor, and heads to the shower. He cranks the temperature up as high as it can go and stands under the scalding spray until his shoulders tint red and his fingers prune like raisins. He uses Ventus’s shampoo and body wash again, even if he messes up a time or two on what is supposed to be used where.

He shuts the water off and dresses quickly. He clears the mirror off and shaves, nicking part of his chin with his razor (his own, _not_ Ventus’s) in a way he hasn’t done since he was sixteen and teaching himself how to shave from Youtube tutorials.

He comes back to Ventus’s room, clean and dressed and empty inside, only to find the bed unoccupied. He wanders out into the living room, picking past the sleeping bags full of relatives on the floor, and finds Ventus in the kitchen. He’s still in his pajamas, a bowl of cereal in hand as he stares out into his tiny backyard.

Ventus’s father enjoys gardening. There are a few tomato plants back there, though they’re currently barren and brown from the frost that comes each night. Ventus used to help his father with the plants in high school, spending his morning crouched in the dirt and ripe for Vanitas to make fun of him for the grime caked underneath his fingernails and smeared on his cheeks.

It has no reason to be gone, that feeling, but he thinks he might miss it anyways.

They pass the next few hours the way they usually do, with barbed words and elbows applied liberally to rib cages and snickers bubbling in their throats. It isn’t forced like Vanitas thought it might be, and seeing the way Ventus relaxes more and more as the morning wears on allows a small amount of comfort to seep into him.

His parents wake up and Ventus’s mother scolds Vanitas for not wearing his slippers yet again. She also bemoans the fact that they both ate cereal on Christmas of all days, when they could easily have that meal any other day of the year. She can’t rectify their mistakes, but the sheer fury she uses just to crack some eggs into a pan tells Vanitas that Ventus’s tiny niece and nephew are going to stuff themselves silly when they do wake up.

They leave early, just to avoid the cacophony of relatives as they all stir to life. It’s for the best, considering the strange look Ventus’s half-awake brother gives him when he bursts out laughing at the kitchen table.

It isn’t his fault. It’s just so ridiculous that it’s funny. He got a single present for Christmas, and that’s no family at all.

Ventus won’t let him drive to Eraqus’s. He’s just lucky that he’s the only person out of the seven billion on this garbage planet that Vanitas trusts enough to let drive his car. The ride is quiet, but Ventus seems hopeful when they finally get to their destination. He snatches his backpack out of the backseat, multiple presents clanging together within the fabric as he shrugs it onto his shoulders.

Vanitas waits for him to gather his shit and they go to the front door together. Ventus doesn’t knock - there’s no need to, not for a home that’s essentially his own.

The decorations that cover Eraqus’s house are festive. Not quite at the overbearing level of Ventus’s parents, but something approaching what Vanitas assumes is normal. Vanitas lingers in the entryway to examine the twin wreaths hanging on either side of the front door as Ventus rushes inside, shouting Aqua and Terra’s names the entire way. Everything smells like pine and cinnamon, and the fact that the wreaths are real explains one of those things. What’s the other - air freshener, maybe? Or some kind of pastry? Vanitas can’t tell.

Laughter rings from deeper within the house, grating against Vanitas’s nerves. Terra’s low chuckle, Aqua’s clear laugh, and the sheer joy that escapes Ventus with every breath mix together so beautifully. The three of them were always meant to be together - and only the three of them, a triangle in perfect alignment. It’s not like Vanitas has never spent time with the three of them before, but this is something more special than sitting at their lunch table in high school or tagging along with Ventus to one of the floor events Aqua or Terra put on. This is a sacred place, one that Vanitas has no right to invade.

He thinks about leaving. He probably should.

But he still wants to see what Ventus got him, and the present he made sure to snatch out of his duffle bag before leaving is heavy in the bottom of his pocket.

Vanitas enters the living room. The blue mat that once covered Eraqus’s floor is carefully folded away in a corner, tucked behind a beautiful Christmas tree decked in gold and silver. Aqua goes on the tips of her toes to fix the star at the top as Terra ruffles Ventus’s hair in the wrong direction. Ventus’s protests are drowned out by his own laughter.

The old man’s cat darts past Vanitas’s feet and disappears into the hallway.

“Merry Christmas, Vanitas,” Aqua says. Hearing his name fall from her lips with such cheer feels wrong. Vanitas scowls at her, but even that isn’t enough to dampen her mood. “Oh, come on! You don’t have to be so upset. It’s Christmas!”

Vanitas scowls harder, something breaking deep inside of him. Aqua seems to realize what she’s said at the same moment, and that’s enough to kill her good mood. Her face falls and she steps closer, avoiding his eyes the entire time. “I’m sorry. I…”

“You forgot,” Vanitas says, lowering his voice so Ventus can’t overhear. Let him keep messing around with Terra. Whatever it takes to keep that distant hurt away from him.

“It won’t happen again,” Aqua says. Clearly desperate to rectify her mistake, she forces a smile onto her face. “Would you like something to drink? Mister Eraqus made eggnog last night with lots of cinnamon. It’s really good.” That explains the other smell.

Vanitas resists the urge to ask for a fifth of vodka, but only barely. He’s spared from having to answer by Eraqus appearing out of nowhere, clapping his hands together to summon their attention. Ventus, Aqua, and Terra all straighten up at the sound, standing at attention like students waiting for instruction.

A Sensei through and through, that Eraqus. Vanitas lets himself slouch a little more than comfortable.

“I’m glad everyone made it here safely. Now that we’re all gathered, I believe it’s time to exchange gifts.”

Vanitas looks over to the tree. At least a dozen gifts rest underneath its branches, every last one of them wrapped in colorful paper and _not_ old newspaper like he was used to. He only bought a gift for Ventus, but he doubts any of the others got something for him. He’ll be a spectator here, too. It’s fine.

“Oh, that’s right!” Ventus slides his backpack off his shoulders and drops down by the pile of gifts. He adds four more to the pile, all wrapped in the rustic wrapping paper covered in maroon deer silhouettes he got from a Michael’s last year.

They went in there after getting tsukemen and boba from the tiny restaurants down the street. Vanitas paid for their food, if only because Ventus delivered the pizza Vanitas ordered the night before after work and Vanitas tipped him with a half-eaten chocolate coin and an expired coupon to Carl’s Jr. It was payback, in a sense.

Ventus was so happy when he found that wrapping paper.

Vanitas edges closer to the tree and drops Ventus’s gift among the others. It’s a tiny thing, wrapped in black construction paper and kept closed with an unholy amount of tape. A scrap of green ribbon he definitely did _not_ steal from Aqua’s RA supplies when she wasn’t looking is tied in a messy bow over the top. It stands out against the other gifts, a spot of darkness amidst a sea of red and green.

Eraqus takes the single chair this time, leaving Aqua, Terra, and Ventus to squeeze themselves onto the couch. Terra takes up so much space that Ventus has to elbow his way just to get on a cushion and Aqua gets shoved to the side, but given how they all keep laughing, this must be normal for them.

Vanitas stays standing until Ventus beckons him closer with a grin. Slowly, he perches on the armrest next to him.

“Come on, I bet you can fit too. Scoot over, Terra,” Ventus says, elbowing Terra in an attempt to get him to move.

“Ven, I can’t. I’m going to squish Aqua if I do.”

“No, it’s okay,” Aqua insists, pressing herself against the opposite armrest. “See? I still had some room. You can come closer, Terra.”

Terra does and Vanitas makes a point to ignore the dusting of pink along Terra’s cheeks as he slots himself against Aqua’s side. Satisfied, Ventus moves with enough enthusiasm to nearly bowl Terra over onto Aqua in his attempt to open up a few more inches of cushion space.

“Look! You can definitely fit,” Ventus says.

Vanitas still doesn’t believe it, but Ventus has that _look_ on his face that Vanitas has never been able to resist. Making an effort to frown even harder than before, he slides into the small gap of leather. Just as he thought, he doesn’t actually fit. He ends up sitting nearly sideways, legs sprawled over Ventus’s lap and his lower back pressed against the armrest instead of the back of the couch like a normal person. He’s incredibly careful not to touch Terra, which only results in touching Ventus even more.

Ventus rests his arms over Vanitas’s shins, smiling like the one ray of light that breaks through the Santa Monica cloud cover during the earliest hours of the morning.

Eraqus chuckles. There’s nothing else he could possibly chuckle at besides the sight of them. Vanitas stiffens, but Ventus rubs small circles into his legs until he’s forced to relax once more. “I suppose I’m on present duty this year, given that Ventus is currently occupied,” Eraqus says. Terra laughs, and even Aqua is too caught up in the Christmas spirit to do anything but smile. Ventus turns red, scarlet breaking over the apples of his cheeks and staining the tips of his ears, but he doesn’t push Vanitas away. If anything, he holds on tighter, keeping Vanitas from scrambling away and saving the shattered pieces of his pride.

Eraqus, for all he spent complaining about his back a few days earlier during the incident Vanitas refuses to let himself dwell on, moves with grace as he ducks under the trees and grabs a stack of presents. He sorts through them, setting some off to the side until he has five presents in his lap.

Vanitas watches him warily. Five? That can’t be right.

Eraqus keeps one for himself and hands the others to Aqua, letting her pass the presents down their cramped line until every single person has a wrapped monstrosity in their lap. Even Vanitas. He stares down at the box in his lap, covered in a shiny green wrapping paper that he is certain doesn’t belong to Ventus.

He picks it up and turns it over, searching until his eyes settle on words messily written with sharpie.

_To: Vanitas_

_From: Terra_

“You all know how the rule goes. Everyone opens one gift at a time until we’ve all gone,” Eraqus explains. He’s good at making it sound like a reminder, even though it’s clearly an instruction solely meant for Vanitas.

“I’ll go first!” Ven chirps, holding up the small box in his hands. “This is from Aqua,” he announces before ripping the paper off with glee. A small Amazon box is neatly taped shut, but Ven makes quick work of ripping it open with all the energy of a six-year-old hyped up on too much sugar.

He pulls out a pair of metal bookends, each shaped like stars. They’re painted a metallic green, shimmering in the sunlight that filters in from the window behind them as Ventus turns the objects over in his hands. “Whoa! Aqua, this is so cool! Did you make it?”

Aqua laughs softly. “I did. I noticed you’ve gotten more books this year, so I figured some bookends might come in handy.”

“You just want me to stop stacking all my textbooks a foot high.”

Aqua laughs again, louder than before. High and crisp and clear, like wind chimes on a nice day. “Maybe I factored that in too.”

“I’ll go next,” Terra says. He opens his gift, a box of gourmet roasted pistachios, with a lot less spectacle than Ventus. “Ven, these are my favorite! Thank you.” Terra doesn’t get excited the way many people do. Even when his eyes light up, his voice falls flatter than it should. His joy is muted, gone with the idealism that died the day he found himself on the wrong end of a knife.

Eraqus goes next at Aqua’s insistence. He tears wrapping paper off a book, the title suggesting that it’s some self-help garbage about finding peace in your life amidst a sea of chaos. It’ll probably join the bookcase full of similar drivel housed in his study once they all leave. Vanitas rolls his eyes and gets a smack on his legs as a result, but it’s a small price to pay.

It stops being a reprimand at all when Ventus rubs the same spot he just hit in a silent apology.

Aqua’s gift from Terra is small and simple: a wooden bookmark, with diamonds and swirls carefully carved out of the center. Aqua adores it.

Finally, all eyes fall on him. “Go on, Vanitas,” Ventus urges, giving his leg a gentle squeeze. “It’s your turn.”

The only times Vanitas has ever held all of their attention at once were the few fleeting moments before something terrible happened. He’s spent years hovering at the edges of their little family, only ever breaking into something approaching friendliness during those years where Terra and Aqua moved to a stage in their life that Ventus wasn’t ready for.

He’s not used to stepping out of their shadows. It feels uncomfortable, the same way it feels uncomfortable to know that everyone can see the way Ventus’s fingers swirl over his joggers like they’ve always belonged there. What happened to the years of keeping their friendship, and later on the tenuous bond that connected them together that neither of them can still give name to, hidden away from eyes that weren’t theirs?

Maybe that secret also died with the old man.

He seems to be eons away from their minds, even Eraqus. Every Christmas night in the old man’s dump ended with a phone call from Eraqus, probably wishing him well and reminiscing over holidays that withered away under fifty pounds of weapons on their backs. He never visited the bastard in person on Christmas. He hardly entered into the world within that bungalow at all. Was he innocently ignorant of everything the bastard put Vanitas through, or was he too blinded by loyalty to believe the truth? Regardless of the answer, it gave the same result: a lifetime of inaction.

Vanitas isn’t sure if he’ll ever be able to forgave Eraqus for that.

The others laugh, but all Vanitas can do is resist the urge to look over his shoulder for a ghost. The old man did joke about haunting Vanitas after he died, after all. Wouldn’t put it past him to start now.

“Vanitas?” Ventus asks gently. He’s not entirely worried, not yet, but he’s approaching it. He’s leaning closer, like he could suss out Vanitas’s thoughts by shoving their faces together.

Vanitas pushes his head away, palm flat against Ventus’s nose and causing him to let out a nasally protest. He rips open the gift in his lap easily, revealing a wooden carving of a pitbull. There’s not much detail, but the shape is unmistakable. He studies it carefully. Whether it’s based more off of Void or Gear, he can’t tell.

“I made sure to make it big enough that your dogs wouldn’t be able to swallow it,” Terra explains.

“Does it do anything?” Vanitas asks, poking at the tail. That should be thick enough to keep either of them from chewing it off and choking.

“It can add some decoration to your apartment?” Terra offers weakly, clearly surprised by the question.

He feels Ventus’s glare on the side of his face, all the more apparent once he rips Vanitas’s hand off his face, more than he sees it. This is the part where Vanitas is supposed to say _thank you_ and they can all move on with their lives.

The old man always expected a thank you after he deigned to give Vanitas anything. The phrase feels like poison on his tongue.

“I can put it on a high shelf, I guess. Should be fine,” Vanitas says instead. Ventus frowns, but Terra seems pleased with his answer. Isn’t that what matters in the end?

He feels more comfortable, if only slightly, when Eraqus doles out the next round of presents and only Ventus’s attention remains on him.

By the time nearly every present is opened, Vanitas has gotten: the wooden dog, from Terra; two metal charms from Aqua for Void and Gear, each shaped into a stylized sun; a container of European truffles, from Eraqus; and… a scrap of paper with a date written on it, from Ventus.

“Is this revenge for all the times I didn’t tip you for pizza?” Vanitas asks, shaking the paper for emphasis. Ventus’s grin isn’t the sly one he sports whenever he figures out a way to one-up Vanitas, but one that contains the same softness he’s worn more often than usual during the past few days.

“Revenge is more of a birthday thing. This is a confirmation for you,” Ventus says proudly.

“Confirmation for what?”

“Your appointment with the tattoo artist in downtown whose Instagram I know you stalk at least once a week. I already paid her deposit fee, so you’ll need to tell me how much the total cost is after everything’s finished.”

Vanitas stares blankly at the paper in his hands, unable to comprehend how he feels. He’s kept tabs on her bookings for _months_. Shouldn’t he be happy? Excited? _Something_?

The pieces are all there, but they’re broken and jagged. Nothing fits together like it should.

“You still need to open your gift,” Vanitas says. At his words, Eraqus straightens and gets the last present from under the tree. It feels all wrong now, to see so many pairs of empty hands when even _Aqua_ went out of her way to make Vanitas a gift of his own. The same woman who grits her teeth and groans whenever Vanitas shows up on her floor, spending hours of her free time to make him a customized gift. He wasn’t even supposed to be here with them, originally, unless Ventus had some harebrained surprise in store that the old man croaking ruined.

Either way, Ventus’s gift was a given, bound to happen the same way it does every year. He expected it to be slipped to him in secret, not touted in public this way. No one else is beholden to him the way Ventus is. No one else needed to get him anything, but they still did.

Eraqus hands Ventus the final gift. Suddenly, Ventus feels like fire and Vanitas untangles himself from his grasp. He folds his arms against his chest and leans against the closest doorway. Ventus shoots him an odd look, but he still unties the ribbon and opens his gift.

“Is this…” Ventus trails off as he pulls out three very familiar-looking tickets, glossy in the morning light.

“Three tickets to the new exhibit opening at Griffith Observatory next month? Yes. There’s a parking voucher in there too, so you won’t have to spend half an hour hiking up the side of the mountain.”

Three tickets to an observatory where most of the activities are free costed chump change compared to paying for a _tattoo_ , but getting tickets for opening day wasn’t easy. Vanitas would have been out of luck if not for an old client with a particularly awful Pomeranian he spent three weeks teaching not to pee on anything leather who happened to work at the place. Besides, Griffith is the only place in the city where the stars aren’t completely drowned out by light pollution.

Vanitas has never understood Ventus’s preoccupation with the night sky. Why do some pinpricks of barely visible light even matter? Vanitas rarely bothered looking for stars even in the desert, where they shined with an intensity that they don’t in the city. Now, he expects any twinkling brightness amongst the sea of black to be another satellite jettisoned into space by some asshole at a computer.

Vanitas prefers the rush of the sea around his ankles and sunlight warming the back of his neck. Things he can see and feel without having to strain his eyes just for a glimpse of something that may not even be real.

Ventus thanks him for the gift, but something in his smile looks strained. He thought Ventus would be happier. Just last week Ventus went on for nearly an hour about the new exhibit; why wouldn’t he be overjoyed at the chance to see it? He can even take Terra and Aqua with him. What’s there not to be happy about?

“Who would have thought that Vanitas can be thoughtful,” Aqua says. Terra is the only one to laugh at her joke.

It feels strange that there aren’t any more gifts to give. That Vanitas has a small pile of his own to take home. That they’re laughing and joking like he belongs here, barging into the traditions they’ve built over the course of a lifetime.

And that Ventus stops smiling.

 

* * *

 

i.

Summer comes in a rush, stealing the days that Vanitas spends at Ventus’s side away. Ventus spends all of May coming up with plans for them to waste the longest days of the year together, only for June to bring news that he’s spending the summer overseas.

“We’re visiting relatives in Italy all summer. I barely even know Italian, Vanitas! Nonna is gonna ask me so many questions, and I’ll be lucky if I can understand enough to answer two of them!” he complains.

Vanitas gets in trouble that afternoon during class for knocking over things on purpose and participating in what Mr. Radcliffe calls _shenanigans_. On that day, and just about every other until the end of the year. He stops Vanitas before he leaves elementary school behind for good on the final day of the year and wishes him luck in healing from what hurt him, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Ventus worms his way into getting Vanitas’s address and promises to send letters, but a piece of paper hidden in his mailbox every two weeks is a world apart from a living, breathing body racing alongside his. He can read the letters while Xehanort is off at work without a problem, can shove them between his mattress and bed frame where Xehanort will never think to look, but it won’t be the same.

Summer comes, and Vanitas is proven right: it isn’t.

Instead, his summer falls into the same routine he’s grown used to. The only difference is that he knows what it could have been like, and the gap between what he expected to happen and what actually happens stings more than he thought possible.

Vanitas spends most of his days alone, finding ways to amuse himself while Xehanort is off being an adult. It doesn’t matter if he leaves the house; he learned years ago that Xehanort doesn’t particularly care where he goes during the day as long as he isn’t dragged back by the cops.

( _Which happened once, when Vanitas was eight and crashed his bike into a tree when he wasn’t paying enough attention to his surroundings. Some cops found him hours later, desperately trying to put the twisted spokes of his bike back into place. They brought him back to Xehanort’s house and Vanitas, covered in bandaids and stinking of antibiotic ointment, pressed his ear to the door of his room and struggled to listen to what the adults were talking about. The cops were there for almost an hour. After they left, Xehanort was furious._

 _The next time a cop approached Vanitas asking why he was alone, he made up some lie about going to the store to pick up a bag of chips and biked for his life._ )

Summer isn’t quite unbearable here, not like the way it is on the other side of the distant mountains in that desert hell, but the hottest days keep Vanitas trapped inside. Those days are the worst, spent melting into the couch watching tv in an attempt to get time to pass as quickly as possible. He can turn on the air conditioner only after Xehanort comes home - it’s a waste of electricity otherwise.

Other days he’ll brave the heat long enough to bike over to the library, burying himself in books that the librarian will squint at from behind a pair of glasses too large for his gaunt face and insist are too mature for a kid like Vanitas to read.

“These books aren’t locked away, _Milo_ ,” Vanitas spits, slapping his hand down on the psychology article focusing on prisoners he was interrupted reading in the middle of a sentence. “I’m a patron, too. I can read what I want.”

Milo sighs and adjusts his stupid glasses. Each lens is nearly the size of a dinner plate, the glass thicker than most of his body. A desert wind could bowl this guy over. “Just because you can read it doesn’t mean you should. You’re still a kid, Vanitas. How about we find you a cool book about something else, huh? We just got a new series in about animal behaviors.”

Vanitas frowns. That’s the kind of thing Ventus would lose his mind over. “Nah. I like this one.”

Milo sighs again, but he knows better not to fight. He may be frustrated with Vanitas, but not frustrated enough to refuse proofreading Vanitas’s letter to Ventus for spelling mistakes.

On the cooler days, Vanitas bikes around town. He probably spends two weeks’ worth of days just in Victoria Gardens, which is less of a garden and more of a giant outdoor shopping mall. Still, it’s full of tourists with wallets stuffed full of cash, and it’s easy to bum five bucks off a gullible idiot. He doesn’t like shopping, but sitting on a bench with a cone of vanilla ice cream in one hand and a soda in the other isn’t a bad way to spend an afternoon.

He watches people go by, single shoppers and happy couples and families with children in tow. Mothers sing to soothe their crying infants and fathers hold tight to their son’s hands as they cross the busy streets together. Friends, arms laden with shopping bags and sweets, dance around each other as they weave through the streets.

Vanitas usually leaves when his stomach ties himself in knots and leaves him nauseous.

He always makes sure to come back before Xehanort does. Xehanort doesn’t usually ask him about how his day went, not when he has dinner to prepare and Vanitas has chores to attend to before his lessons.

Every day is nearly the same. The monotony is only broken by Ventus’s letters, arriving every two weeks like clockwork and teaching Vanitas what time the mail carrier comes by each day. Vanitas learns to hinge his life upon four-sixteen P.M.

June melts into July, which then blends into August, and Vanitas feels a nervous excitement coil him tight as the start of school comes even closer. Middle school means that he’ll have to get used to a new bus schedule and a rotating set of teachers and classrooms throughout the day.

Mostly, it means that he’ll have a friend - _a best friend_ , he has to remind himself - to see again.

When the first day of school finally does come and Vanitas steps off the bus and onto school grounds, he’s wound so tight that a single misstep could shatter him. His emotions, messy and full of tension he doesn’t have a name for, cloud his mind and leave him feeling unsteady on his feet. Something unexplainable swirls within him until he finally spots Ventus in the math class they end up sharing. His skin may be three shades darker and his hair two shades blonder than Vanitas remembers, but the grin that shines on his face is exactly the same.

“What was Italy like?” Vanitas asks. Aside from that desert hell, he’s never left this small town.

“It was so much fun! My mom took probably a million pictures. I’ll bring some to school once she gets them printed so you can see.”

“Did you go to the beach?”

“Yeah! It was pretty, but man, you should have seen the stars! I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many before,” Ventus says, chattering about the stars and the night skies until the bell rings and the teacher has to tell him to be quiet so class can start.

There were more stars in the desert than there are here. There, they cover the sky like a blanket of glittering lights. Vanitas used to squint at them late at night, trying to count them until his eyes hurt and he couldn’t tell what twinkle was a star and what was wishful thinking. He didn’t really care for them then and he doesn’t now. He doesn’t get what Ventus sees in them.

When lunch comes around, Vanitas spots Ventus on the other side of the cafeteria. He grabs his tray, orange juice and a slice of half-heated pizza served on a bed of styrofoam, and heads towards his table.

Until Terra and Aqua appear, taking a seat on either side of him. The rest of the table fills with kids, ones that laugh and smile at the three like they’re all old friends.

Ventus is only a few feet away from him, but he feels farther than he did when they were separated by the sea.

 

* * *

 

iii.

Getting kicked out of coffee and tea shops becomes the weirdest tradition Vanitas has ever taken part of. Over the next month, he and Xion are asked to leave three different stores.

Alfred Coffee, a tiny cafe in Brentwood that Vanitas spots three different clients at that he deliberately pretends not to see, asks them to leave after Vanitas knocks over Xion’s cold brew as punishment for _wrongly insisting_ that Corgis weren’t the most useless breed of dog.

At first Xion panics, clearly remembering the event that had gotten them kicked out of the last place, but she bursts into laughter once she realizes that nothing but Vanitas’s own childishness got them kicked out.

Then there’s the Australian coffee shop next to the Trader Joe’s by campus, who makes them leave after Xion takes a joke about only old people caring about Chemistry too fucking far. It’s not Vanitas’s fault that he had to start shouting. She needed to know how wrong she was, and it needed to happen as loudly as possible.

Then there’s Espresso Cielo just a block away from the beach, who make Vanitas leave despite the several hundred dollars he’s spent on their mediocre drinks over the past five years. He wasn’t even being disruptive. He just slammed his face into the table and groaned after Xion insisted, _again_ , that Corgis weren’t useless.

It’s not like they’ve been banned from any of these places. There isn’t some mugshot displayed in the break room so employees know not to let them inside. Vanitas’s pride won’t let him return, and neither will Xion’s shame.

Now they sit at a quirky brunch spot close to campus. The drinks aren’t great, but Vanitas would probably kill a man if it meant getting a jar of their in-house hazelnut spread. Xion digs into a smoked salmon breakfast, methodically cutting the fish into bite-sized pieces and carefully laying it onto her artisan toast.

LA brunch is one of the most pretentious things Vanitas has ever seen, but hell if he won’t order it whenever he gets the chance.

“This food is delicious!” Xion says, gently cracking the top of her soft-boiled egg with her spoon. “Let’s try not to get kicked out, _okay_?” She levels a look at Vanitas that could probably freeze a lesser man with the sheer level of passive-aggression oozing from it.

“Then stop having bad opinions,” Vanitas shoots back, dropping a dollop of hazelnut spread onto his toast.

“My opinions are fine!”

“Not when they’re about Corgis.”

Xion sighs, the sound itself long-suffering, but she doesn’t push the point further. Instead she pops a spoonful of egg into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. Vanitas is starting to recognize that look; she gets it whenever she wants to ask something that she isn’t sure how to bring up.

Xion swallows. She stares down at her plate, mouth twisted in a frown. “Um, Vanitas?”

“I know you want to ask me something. Just spit it out.”

Her face turns red and Vanitas’s heart comes to a stop in his chest, panic flaring in his veins. He’s not good with feelings, but there’s no way he’s been reading her wrong for the past month, right?

Even as she grows redder, he feels all the blood drain from his face. God, he _really_ hopes she doesn’t think this is a date. He’s never had to reject someone before. There’s only one person stupid enough to like him, and even _that_ hasn’t gone anywhere concrete over the past decade and a half it’s been in the making. Given everything that’s happened over the past few months, it’s going to stay on its current path towards completely nowhere.

“I’d like some advice,” Xion eventually says. “I’ve tried asking Axel and Roxas, but they’re not very good at this kind of thing.”

Okay, maybe she isn’t asking him out. That’s more of a relief than he can say. “What kind of advice?”

“Well…” Xion bites her lip. “Um, there’s this girl I met…”

Vanitas perks up. A girl, huh? He should have figured. “And?”

“And I was wondering if you had any advice on how to ask her out,” Xion finishes, beet red. She shoves a piece of salmon into her mouth.

He’s baffled at the implication that he’s some paragon of romantic advice, but if there’s one thing he likes, it’s telling people what to do. Rather than admit his complete lack of romantic experience, he settles for the better option: finding a way to put her friends on blast. “Well, what have your dumb friends said?”

He hasn’t met Axel, even if he feels like he’ll eventually have to one day, but he remembers that Roxas kid well. There is no chance in hell that he’s so much as held a hand in the past five years.

“Axel said that I just need to walk up to her, touch her shoulder, and ask her how it felt when she fell from heaven. Roxas said,” she takes a deep breath and when she speaks again, it’s with a deeper, sullen voice, an obvious imitation of her friend despite Vanitas only having heard him speak once before, “I don’t know, bat your eyelashes and giggle or something?” Her voice returns to normal. “Which isn’t very helpful.”

Vanitas snorts. “Yeah, they’re both idiots. How well do you know this girl?”

“Not very,” Xion says with a sigh. “We’ve only spoken once before, but Vanitas? I’ve never spoken to anyone like her. She was a little quiet, but everything she did say felt so powerful. And she’s beautiful, too. Really beautiful.”

Vanitas allows himself a few seconds to feel like a complete idiot. How could he think Xion has a crush on him, when she’s obviously gone off the deep end for this girl she barely knows? “Do you have her number? Some way to talk to her?”

“No, but I know she likes to stay in the sculpture garden and draw. I’ve seen her there a few times.”

That’s more of a start than some people. “This doesn’t have to be rocket science, you know. Or advanced architecture, or whatever your major will be once you can finally apply.”

“Hey, you remembered! It is architecture,” she says, beaming.

“Wonderful. Anyways, here’s what you do. You go up to her, tell her that you think she’s cute, and tell her that you’d like to get to know her better over coffee. It doesn’t have to be coffee. Any type of meal works. Ice cream could be good. Make sure to compliment her in a way that she knows you’re attracted to her, otherwise she might just think you’re being friendly. You don’t want that, do you?”

Xion shakes her head emphatically.

“Exactly. Make sure she knows you’re into her _before_ asking her out. Then you wait. If she says yes, you did it. If she says no? Don’t run off crying or be weird about it. Thank her and leave. Got it?”

Xion nods, eyes wide but shining with delight. “Thank you, Vanitas! I knew it was a good idea to ask you.”

Vanitas shoves another piece of hazelnut spread-covered bread into his mouth. “I’m flattered, but why me?” he asks around a mouthful of carbs and sugar.

“Because you’ve been dating Ventus since… well, before I met you, I think, and given the way you talk about him, you must be very happy together.” She nods, like this is the one fact in the world she’s certain of.

Like Vanitas isn’t currently choking on his food. He’s going to die in this stupid French-themed cafe and it’ll be all Xion’s fault. He sputters and coughs, making a bigger idiot of himself than he has in weeks. Panicked, Xion passes her glass of water across their small table and he grabs it, downing half the thing in a single gulp. It does the trick, thankfully. Now, instead of choking to death, he’s simply coughing his lungs up.

“Vanitas? Are you okay?” Xion asks.

“I’m-” Vanitas coughs, “-Ventus and I. We’re not.” Another cough. “Together.” Almost the polar opposite of that, really.

“Oh,” Xion says softly, visibly deflating. At least she has the gall to look embarrassed, even if the red tinting her cheeks is nothing compared to the fire blazing across Vanitas’s face. “I’m sorry. When I first met you, you said you had a lunch date to go to and it was with him. Plus with the way you talk about him, I just thought-”

“-It’s not like that, okay?” he says, and leaves it at that.

She glances at him from under her eyelashes. He can’t figure out why, but she looks at him like she knows something that he doesn’t. His glare does nothing to diminish her look. “I think I understand,” she says softly.

Xion changes the subject immediately after, proving again why Vanitas bothered to give her the time of day in the first place. “I think she’ll be there tomorrow. The girl I like. I’ll ask her after class. Can I text you and let you know how it goes?”

“Do what you want. I don’t care.”

Xion picks her knife and fork back up and cuts another piece of her salmon off. “Thank you, Vanitas. You’re a good friend.”

“Whatever.”

No one’s ever told him that before. Nothing feels the way it used to, but those words make him just a little bit warmer.

If Vanitas hangs around underneath the small amount of shade granted by an iron sculpture of a woman the next day and happens to see Xion marching under the purple jacaranda trees that sprout all over this garden, fists at her sides and determination in her gait, approach a slight blonde girl sitting on a bench with a sketchbook in her lap, then no one has to know.

Xion’s too far away for him to make out her words, but the way the girl smiles up at her fills him with a fierce pride. Xion sits next to her and they chat for a few minutes. When she does leave, it’s with matching smiles on both their faces.

She doesn’t see him, which he is intensely grateful for. He’ll never say it to her face, but he really is proud of her. The feeling is strange, but not entirely unwelcome.


	5. Chapter 5

iii.

“Oh, it was so embarrassing, Vanitas. Why did I suggest rollerblading? I didn’t know how to rollerblade! I still don’t!” Xion lets her head slump against her laptop, abandoning all pretense of writing her midterm paper.

Vanitas eyes her from the other side of his dining room table. Unlike the two years of G.E.’s she’ll have to take before she can even get into her major, he has a _real_ midterm at the end of the week, one that requires things like critical thinking and an innate understanding of complex formulas.

All Xion has to do is write an anthropology paper. She’ll be fine, once she actually types something in her word document.

Vanitas doesn’t dignify her with a response, but she starts again even without one. “Naminé didn’t know how to skate either, so at least she understood… but still! I’m not sure if she had fun. All we did was crash into walls together and get lapped by little kids.”

“Did you make plans for a second date,” Vanitas says flatly, not bothering to look up at her. He scribbles down part of an equation into his notebook and snags a chip from the open bag of Sun Chips next to him. She couldn’t bring him a full meal from the dorms, but she did give him the chips that came with her sandwich. It isn’t a brownie, but it’s acceptable.

“Not yet,” Xion says, sighing. She attracts Gear’s attention, prompting the pitbull to trot over and nudge Xion’s leg with her nose. Her hand finds the dog’s head and scratches under her ear, right in the spot she likes. That dog has trained Xion well. Both of them have.

“That was stupid of you.”

“Hey!” Xion’s head snaps up, probably to frown at him. He opens up another set of lecture slides on his laptop instead of acknowledging her.

“Look, I have classes I actually need to pass. You wanted to come to my place to study. Last I checked, that doesn’t include complaining about how you messed up your first date. Now, how about you pull out your phone and invite her out for ice cream like I _suggested_ _last time_.”

“...Are there even ice cream places within walking distance? And don’t say Diddy Riese. That place feels too… Freshman-y, I guess? Plus, there’s nowhere to sit.”

That’s right. Xion’s a freshman without a car. She can’t drive to West Hollywood to blow four dollars for parking and five dollars on artisan ice cream. Ten, if she’s buying for herself and her date. “There’s a Yogurtland.”

“I think Naminé would like that. Should I text her to see what she’s doing this Friday?”

“Sure. Once you do that, then you can get back to your damn paper, because I need to cover two more lectures before tomorrow and this material is dense.” He still isn’t sure if he fully understands what he’s already gone through, but that’s a problem he can face after reviewing everything.

“Okay. Sorry about bothering you, Vanitas. I just can’t stop thinking about it, you know? I’m worried,” she explains. Vanitas peers over his laptop as she slowly straightens in her chair. Her hand must not have left Gear’s head once during that entire exchange.

He gets it, more than he wishes he would. Guilt spikes within him and for a moment, he doesn’t see Xion sitting in the chair opposite his. He sees a burst of sunlight, of ocean waves glittering at him. The only other person who has ever made use of that chair.

Until Vanitas sees a ball and chain tied around him and he’s dragged down to the depths.

_I think - no, I know - that he misses you_ , Kairi’s ghost tells him, and he’s back on Kerckhoff Patio under the February sunlight, the star that stares down at him from banners on campus and A-frames for games given flesh. Her self-assured smile is hidden behind a thick scarf, arms resting on the special type of backpack that only student athletes get.

_And you think I don’t miss him!?_ Vanitas hears himself snap. His voice sounds removed from his body, refracted through empty beer bottles and freeway underpasses. _God, I think of him every single moment. That’s the problem!_

_He talks about you all the time, too_ , she says softly, her eyes sympathetic in a way that, strangely enough, doesn’t make him try to tear his hair out. Her condolences are not for a bastard that never deserved them, not anymore, but for a boy who deserves so much more than the monster he tried to choose.

_Look, when you get to go back to your cutesy dorm room and see him studying in the floor lounge or whatever, tell him that I do lo-_ and Vanitas stops himself short with a scowl. Ball and chain.

Then he’s back in his apartment, the one-bedroom big enough for a boy-morphed-man and his two dogs, sitting at the dining room table that he only ever bothered to buy two chairs for.

And Xion is repeating his name, worried.

“Vanitas? Vanitas!”

Vanitas blinks back to himself. He scowls, mind fuzzy and heart heavy from the memory. He realizes, a little dumbly, that Xion looks a little like Kairi, the same way Roxas looks a little like Ventus. If Kairi is a shell made of mother opal, unbroken and glittering in the moonlight, found in the tidepools of Malibu, then Xion is the conch that washes up on the shore - a little battered, but the kind of thing Vanitas would tuck away in his pocket and bribe Aqua to turn into a necklace. Something that matches him a little better.

Kairi is Ventus’s friend. She bolsters and cheers, never a chain dragging someone down but a beacon to bring them home.

And Vanitas? He isn’t.

All he’ll ever be is every single thing the old bastard told him he was. He’s known all along.

“Vanitas, please!” A hand is on his shoulder now, gently shaking him. “Did I say something wrong? I’m sorry!”

Vanitas shakes his head, his body sliding through molasses. Sweat beads on his skin, leaving him feeling cold all over. Ventus is warm, but Ventus isn’t here, _can’t be here_. Vanitas can’t let him come running.

“You didn’t say anything, calm down,” he forces out, tongue thick in his throat. He’s fine, really. Minnie will want him to talk about this, even if he hasn’t told her everything about Ventus yet, but that conversation can wait until his appointment next week.

Xion doesn’t need to know about that. Any of that. “Really, I’m okay. You try to focus on chemistry lectures for two hours straight and see if you come out the other side in one piece,” he adds.

Xion giggles at that, but her hand doesn’t leave his shoulder. Instead, she squeezes it gently. “All right,” she says. “Do you want to take a break?”

“...Yeah. Maybe I should.”

Xion steps away, humming to herself as she surveys his apartment. She turns towards his balcony, her back to him as she approaches the curtains. “This apartment is kind of dark… maybe what you need is some sunlight.”

She can’t see the way he winces at the suggestion.

“How about we go on a walk? I bet Void and Gear would enjoy it, too.”

He already walked them this morning, but they can always use the extra exercise. Nodding, he closes his laptop and whistles as he stands up - a single, clear note that Vanitas picked specifically because no one would usually make that kind of sound. He doesn’t need his dogs to pay attention to strangers whistling as they walk down the street.

Gear and Void are in front of him almost immediately, both sitting down and watching him with matching expectant looks. “Walk,” he commands, gesturing towards the door. They get the hint, which, of course they would, he worked his ass off to train them, and come back to him with their respective harnesses in their jaws.

“Xion, get over here. You can put a harness on a dog, right?” Vanitas says, crouching as he unfurls Gear’s harness and guides her paws to the correct holes to step through.

Xion scrambles to his side. “Um, yes! I mean, I haven’t actually done it before, but I don’t think it would be hard… right?”

“Stop doubting yourself and put the harness on already.” Void’s an easy dog to handle. Xion keeps her eyes practically glued to Vanitas as she copies his movements. It takes longer than it would have for Vanitas to do, but eventually both dogs are secure in their harnesses and ready to go.

They exit the apartment onto the street. Vanitas tries not to think of the cemetery across the street as they walk, instead gesturing for Xion to follow him towards campus. He can deal with the multi-million dollar homes lording their property value over the decrepit apartment complexes across the street much easier than he can deal with a row of tombstones right now.

Some days are better than others, but once Vanitas is shaken up over one thing, its easy for more shadows to invade his mind. The old man did always say that all it took to topple a solid defense was one weakness.

The gap within him, the void that once stretched on, isn’t as big as it used to be. That doesn’t mean it’s gone. Just that there’s more of Vanitas that’s returned.

Void and Gear are both good on walks, even if Gear still stops to stare at passing squirrels on occasion. They trot obediently at their sides, though the relative silence feels oppressive. Pure silence, the complete absence of sound, is so unlike what Vanitas is accustomed to that it screams in his ears, but even the distant rush of traffic grates on his frazzled nerves.

“Hey, Xion,” Vanitas says, waiting for Xion’s curious hum before continuing, “Tell me a story.”

“A story? Let me think of one…” she trails off, yet again knowing when _not_ to push the issue. She doesn’t question his strange request. She just tries to humor him. “Oh, have I told you about the concert Roxas, Axel, and I are going to next week?”

“No.”

“We’re going to see a band Roxas and I really like. Axel doesn’t know them very well, but things like that are more fun when the three of us are together,” she smiles to herself, something impossibly fond in her expression. Vanitas knows that face well, has seen it in the horizon reflected on Ventus and Terra and Aqua’s faces countless times over his life.

When he sees it on Xion, it’s strange. It doesn’t hurt to look at.

“Roxas was so excited to go, but he almost refused to go when he found out tickets were thirty-five dollars each,” she continues, giggling. “He usually refuses to go to concerts that cost over thirty dollars, because he’s really prideful about how much he likes underground indie artists that no one really knows.”

Vanitas snorts. “God. What a hipster.”

Xion giggles harder, nodding. “He really is! But he loves this band, so he bought the tickets in the end. He’s still a little grumpy about it, and sometimes I catch him muttering about becoming a sell-out, but he really is happy to go, I think.”

They turn at the corner, walking along the road that divides the dorms from the cluster of shitty apartments most upperclassmen live in. The sidewalk is warped and cracked beneath their feet, but they take the unlevel concrete in stride. “Have fun, I guess.”

“Thanks. I’m sure we will. What about you, Vanitas? Do you like concerts?”

Vanitas shrugs. “Never been.” He, like any self-respecting student, listens to music on his walk (or occasional bus ride, when he doesn’t feel like traversing multiple sets of stairs and hills) to campus, but he’s never felt the need to go to a concert. He’s never had anyone to go with, not with the way the noise gives Ventus a headache.

“You should go! They’re really fun,” she says, and something in her voice turns a little teasing. “A lot of them have bars at the venue. I think you’d like that.”

“What are you trying to imply?”

“Well,” Xion begins innocently, thoughtfully tapping her chin. Vanitas knows for a fact behind that sweet voice is a shit-eating grin that she’s barely able to hide. “You have four different kinds of alcohol in your fridge, and they’re all open. Since you live alone, I mean…”

“Ventus really likes when I make him drinks,” Vanitas blurts out, his blood running cold. “I don’t drink alone.”

Xion doesn’t know what happened between them. For all she’s aware, they still talk all the time. Only Aqua, Terra, and Kairi know the truth. Not even Minnie knows, and he pays her a solid twenty bucks per session out of his own pocket to learn everything about him so he can pick up the pieces of his shattered self and reform them into something resembling a person. Never mind whatever bags of cash she reaps from his insurance.

Maybe Minnie wouldn’t agree with his choice, but he didn’t have any other choice. He didn’t.

It hurts, but it has to. This is better than the alternative.

“I wouldn’t know,” Xion says. “I’ve never drank before.”

Vanitas drags himself away from this thoughts - if there’s one thing Minnie does know, it’s that dwelling isn’t good for him. She truly believes Xion is, though, and maybe that Doctor’s title in front of her name is there for a reason. “You’ve been here for almost an entire year and you haven’t gone to a frat party and gotten trashed? What kind of freshman are you?”

“I have gone!” Xion gasps, offended. “But whenever I go, I have to keep an eye on Roxas all night. Whenever he gets drunk, he starts complaining about his ex. It’s bad. The boys in Theta Kai avoid him now.”

Vanitas snorts. “What a disaster.”

“Hey! He’s not a disaster, he’s just…” Xion trails off, desperately searching for a way to defend her dumb friend. “...really talkative and easily upset after drinking. He still hears about his ex all the time too, which I don’t think helps. They have mutual friends.”

Vanitas is spared from commenting by the sight of a familiar hellhound. The younger of the two sisters who live next door to him comes into their line of view, shouting as she’s pulled along by a dog that’s nearly twice her size.

“Stitch, you bad dog! Slow down!” she cries, nearly tripping over herself as the beast pulls her along the uneven sidewalk. Frowning, Vanitas hands Xion Gear’s leash and motions for both of them to stay put as he approaches the girl. The dog tries to speed past him, but for as fast as it may be, Vanitas is faster. He wraps an arm around the dog’s chest and freezes it in place, the girl stumbling to a stop behind him.

“Hey! You’re the guy from next door!” she says, scowling at him like he’s a stranger. She’s young and she’s tiny, filled with an animosity that could put his own kid self to shame. “Let go of my dog!”

“And watch you fly off into traffic? No thanks,” Vanitas says, forcing the dog to stop squirming in his grasp. It tries to growl at Vanitas, but a firm _no_ is enough to get it to shut up.

“I had it under control!”

“Stop lying to yourself, kid. You need to train this mutt better.” Slowly, Vanitas lets go of the dog and gets to his feet. To the girl’s clear surprise, it doesn’t immediately take off running.

“Stitch is fine. He just has a high badness level right now. He’s getting better,” she says, her scowl morphing to a pout. She looks up at Vanitas with her head held high, every part of her tiny body screaming defiance. She barely goes up to his hip, something her attitude seems to have conveniently forgotten.

“Where’s your sister, anyways? And shouldn’t you be in school?”

“Nani’s at work, and today was a short day. I got out early.”

“Then what are you doing outside by yourself? Go home, kid.”

“No! Stitch was getting riled up, so I needed to walk him. Though I guess he doesn’t look so bad now…” she says, her gaze drifting to the dog in question. The girl has a point; he can see how anxious the dog is, paws padding in place like it’s waiting to take off. Not bad enough to drag her up and down the awful hills the apartments are all placed on, but still not great. The moment Vanitas leaves, the dog is going to take off and the girl will be flying after it once more.

He doesn’t feel bad for her. Really, he doesn’t. But this girl and her sister did watch Void and Gear for him over Christmas while everything went to shit, so maybe he feels like he owes them a little. Besides, training dogs is his side-hustle, and he didn’t get two-thousand Instagram followers for his business account by taking selfies with Pomeranians.

( _He does have one selfie with a Pomeranian he trained on his account, owned by an older couple in North Hollywood who had only ever owned ferrets. They had no idea what they were getting into. Besides, he only took the selfie after Ventus tagged along during an the initial consultation and badgered him into doing so._ )

The point remains - Vanitas has some measure of pride in what he does. “Then you’re coming with me and my friend so you can learn how to _actually_ walk a dog.”

The girl folds her arms over her chest, wary but open to hearing more. She’s still ready to pick a fight, and it reminds him so much of himself at that age that it hurts. She’s trying so hard to be older than she is. “What’s in it for me?”

Interactions are easier when they’re transactions. He gets that. Maybe that’s why he’s caving so easily - especially since he doesn’t even like kids.

“I’ll get you pizza.”

The girl remains wary. “Papa John’s?”

Vanitas resists the urge to laugh. _Of course_ she’d pick the one pizza chain he was hoping she wouldn’t. It’s not like they live by two separate family owned pizza places that are actually good. No, Papa John’s reigns supreme.

But at this time of day, it should be safe to order. Besides, it’s cheaper than the good places. “Fine. Now give me the leash.”

She sticks her hand out towards him - the one that doesn’t have the leash in its grasp. Vanitas raises an eyebrow and refuses to move.

She wiggles her hand. “Come on, you’re supposed to shake on it! It’s a deal, right?”

This time, he can’t fight the laugh down. He can’t believe her. “Fine. It’s a deal.”

They shake on it.

Vanitas has Xion pass the little girl Void’s leash and lets her take Gear instead, so Vanitas can focus on the hellhound. He growls at Vanitas’s dogs and keeps trying to start fights, but it’s nothing Vanitas can’t handle.

Xion is delighted with the new circumstance, and it isn’t until the next day does Vanitas realize he didn’t think of Ventus once for the rest of the day. Not even when he gets his pizza.

 

* * *

  

i.

Aqua cries at her lunch table sometimes. Vanitas passes by her table almost daily, too far away to see her tears fall but close enough that the tremble in her shoulders is unmistakable. The other kids don’t give her weird looks the way Vanitas expects them to. Instead, Zack offers to buy her a chocolate bar to cheer her up, and Rinoa takes her hand and leads her off on some adventure.

She looks different without that boy who Vanitas always imagined as being eternally by her side. She probably won’t be taller than Terra for much longer, but without him, she just looks small. Vanitas never expected Terra to vanish the way he did, here one day and a ghost the next.

Vanitas remains a spectator, sparing her, Ventus, and their other friends a glance out of the corner of his eye as he leaves. That changes the day Ventus snatches his tray out of his hands and forces him to join their table. It feels weird, like putting a shirt on inside-out, to eat lunch inside of the cafeteria. He’s used to crouching behind the electrical box on the edge of the soccer field by himself, tray carefully balanced on his knees as he eats.

Aqua’s spent more of her life glaring at Vanitas than she hasn’t, so seeing her so listless feels even weirder.

She looks at him with blank eyes, as if registering his presence for the first time. “Do you know why Terra did it?” she asks. Something returns to her - a spark, maybe - and she slams her hand down by her lunch box as she leans towards him, searching for answers.

“That would require me to know what Terra did,” Vanitas retorts. Ventus elbows him in the side, which naturally warrants Vanitas to elbow him in response. Milk splashes all over the sleeve of Ventus’s hoodie and he groans. Honestly, he deserves it.

“How do you not know?” Aqua asks. “Everyone knows.”

“Do I look like someone who talks to everyone?”

Aqua frowns and leans back, knowing that he’s right. He doesn’t get buddy-buddy with everyone who crosses his path the way she and Ventus do. “People say he helped rob a store,” she says. “They had knives, and someone even had a gun. I thought it had to be a rumor, but there was an article in the paper about it. They didn’t include his name, but…”

“They sent him to juvie,” Ventus adds quietly.

“And how could _I_ know why he did something stupid enough to be sent to juvie? What, do you think I helped him do it?” Vanitas asks, taking a bite of his mini cheeseburger. He winces as he chews, not expecting part of the meat to be still frozen. He spares himself a few seconds to glare at Ventus’s cold pasta. He’s weird, so he _likes_ eating spaghetti cold.

Ventus rolls his eyes. “You’re too afraid of high schoolers to help them with _anything_.”  Ventus then offers Vanitas a grape, because he’s dumb and must have thought that Vanitas wanted one. He takes it anyways and waits for Aqua to wipe away enough of her tears to respond.

“Because you’ve done awful things, but Ven still thinks you’re good,” Aqua says. Vanitas hears what she doesn’t say. If Vanitas, local punkass troublemaker, can befriend someone so good, then how much more spotless is Terra? “And if Terra did do it, there has to be another reason. There’s no way he would hurt innocent people. _Ever_.”

_Not like you, Vanitas._

Vanitas leans back, trying to sort through what he knows about Terra. He’s had maybe two conversations with the guy in the seven years they’ve known each other, but Ventus talks about him enough to fill in the gaps.

He takes what he knows about Terra - desperate to prove himself, easily trusting, and a terrible judge of character - and applies it to a situation he barely knows about.

“What I would guess,” Vanitas says, noting the way Aqua sits a little straighter as he begins, “is that Terra befriended some idiot high schoolers who decided to do something really dumb, and Terra wanted to prove to them that he was cool. That’s all. Besides, there’s no way he knows how to use a gun.”

Aqua looks visibly relieved at that, lifting her hand to her mouth to cover her expression. Just because she’s relieved doesn’t mean she looks happy, though. It’s weird.

“See? I told you he was smart!” Ven chirps from the other side of Vanitas, offering him another grape like he’s a dog who performed a trick well. Vanitas scoffs, but takes the grape anyways. They’re too tasty to pass up.

“Maybe you’re not all bad,” Aqua says. “I wonder what Terra would say if he saw this.”

“He’d probably be amazed that you haven’t tried to kill me yet,” Vanitas says. They both had a nasty protective streak when it came to Ventus. Maybe Terra would try to kill him first, followed by Aqua.

They’ve never directly threatened him, but he remembers the countless glares and the protective hands laid on Ventus’s shoulder whenever he so much as sneezed in their direction. Now that he thinks about it, those glares appeared on their faces less often since starting middle school.

Vanitas steals a glance at Ventus. He’s the only reason why their opinion of him could have ever shifted towards something more positive. Ventus catches his eye, gives him a small smile, and offers another grape.

Failing to notice their exchange, or maybe choosing to ignore it, Aqua _chuckles_. Even though it’s nothing but a couple huffs of breath, it’s more than she’s ever given him before. Ventus’s grin turns brilliant, shining despite the green braces that bracket every single tooth. His eyes are bright and nearly glittering even in the fluorescent light of the cafeteria.

Vanitas imagines that this is what it’d feel like to look at the ocean in person: endlessly full of wonder.

Something twists deep in Vanitas’s chest, something that’s never really twisted before. Ventus is still two months older than him, still a little smaller, but the roundness that’s clung to his cheeks as a little kid is finally starting to melt away, and his smile is so earnest.Vanitas finds himself wishing he could see it everywhere, not just at school.

Maybe he could, if not for Xehanort still forbidding Vanitas from talking to him. Even though Ventus insists that he could change Eraqus’s and his parents’ minds, Vanitas knows the same could never apply to Xehanort. His rule is law, and no matter how much Vanitas may try to squirm out of its grasp, he can never escape it.

In a different world, maybe this is Vanitas’s life. A world where he gets to take every grape Ventus offers him without a problem, where Aqua learns to tolerate his presence and Terra greets him with a wave instead of a glare. A world where he even gets to learn about the other friends that flit in and out of their lives, even if he rarely talks to them himself.

A world where he faces Ventus on that blue mat once more, two judoka learning how to take each other down with safety and respect.

Vanitas has never been in a real match before. They say he’s too violent to participate.

The next grape Ventus offers tastes bitter on his tongue, too much stem overpowering its natural sweetness. He looks back down at his own meal, at his half-frozen mini cheeseburger and his all-frozen carton of milk that the cafeteria workers dumped onto his plate. When the final bell of the day rings, he’ll go home to an angry voice, stories of a war he doesn’t care about, and questions about his day that will only ever get steamrolled over by Xehanort’s own whims.

A realization settles over Vanitas.

He’ll never get to have the life he wants, not as long as Xehanort is around.

 

* * *

 

ii.

“You’re leaving tomorrow?” Ventus murmurs into the darkness.

Vanitas is back on the air mattress for the night. He stares up at the ceiling, star shaped discolorations leaving white gaps above him. Those stars shine in Ventus’s dorm now, pressed against the pushpin-friendly fabric of his walls.

“Yep,” Vanitas says. “Can’t have my neighbors watch my dogs forever.”

“I really am grateful for your present, you know. Don’t think that I’m not.”

Vanitas snorts. “Is that why you’ve been so pissed all day? Because you liked my gift?”

“No, I’m pissed because you always do this! You didn’t get four tickets, you got three, and I know it’s not because the tickets were too expensive. You act like I don’t want you there with me.”

“What, so you like having me as a fourth wheel?” Vanitas spits, ignoring the tiny piece of himself that shrivels at his own words.

“Stop saying that!” Ventus’s fist slams against his mattress as he sits up. There’s just enough light to see his blankets pool around his waist, but not enough to see his anger. That’s easy enough to hear in his voice.

Vanitas glares at Ventus, even though it’s too dark for him to see it. “Can’t handle the truth, Ventus?”

“It’s not true and you know it!” He slams his fist into his mattress again, but when he speaks, the anger drains from his voice. He sounds exhausted. “Vanitas, you _know_ I care about you. I wouldn’t have invited you here if I didn’t.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Don’t ‘yeah, yeah’ me!” Slowly, Ventus lays back down with a sigh. He drags his hands down his face with a groan - that movement dramatic enough to see even with the thin slivers of moonlight that leak in to aid him. “Ugh, what am I doing… I’m yelling at you again, after everything you’ve been through. I’m sorry.”

Ventus gives his kindness far too easily. Even as a child, he was too quick to forgive. Vanitas isn’t stupid enough to fool himself into thinking that he doesn’t drag Ventus down constantly. Even now, he’s ruining his favorite day of the year. He wastes so much on Vanitas, as if he could ignore the poison that seeps out from underneath Vanitas’s skin by squeezing his eyes shut.

There are times when Ventus takes all the rotten parts of Vanitas and cuts them away, shearing off the ugliest parts of himself one kind gesture at a time. There are other times when all his shine does is make the stains more striking. Vanitas came from hell and that’s where he’ll go to die, most likely. Anyone dumb enough to get too close will get a one-way ticket, too.

Ventus, for all he tries, can never understand the way rot worms its way into you.

All Vanitas has in this world are two dogs and this boy, who is too much of a fool not to offer his heart to someone who has only ever known how to break things. Ventus could push him away at any time and he would be fully justified in doing so. There’s nothing Vanitas could do to stop him.

If anything, all he’s doing is encouraging that inevitable fall.

“Vanitas?” Ventus’s voice is so, so soft. A little hesitant.

“Yeah?”

“Will you…” Ventus scoots further back in his bed. “...Come over here? Please?” And then, murmured so quietly that Vanitas almost misses it, “I know it’s dumb, but I miss you.”

“What’s with you the past few days? You’re never this touchy.” Not that he’s complaining, of course. He just wants to hear his theory confirmed.

Even with that, Vanitas doesn’t expect an answer. Something that close to a joke is usually just brushed away, forgotten in an endless stream of banter. He stills at the way Ventus hums, not needing a light source to know about the flush that spreads over his face.

“You keep zoning out. When I… you know,” Vanitas snorts at how Ventus can’t even say it out loud, “I feel like I can help you. I have no idea what you’re going through. I don’t know if I ever have. I can’t tell you that things are going to be okay, because I don’t think they’ve ever been okay for you, but at least I can remind you that I’m still here. That’s not going to change. I won’t leave you to go through this alone.”

The dorms won’t open up again until after the new year, but Ventus could go back to LA with him. Vanitas could easily put him up for the better part of a week. They could enjoy the quiet emptiness of Westwood during breaks, playing music too loudly on Vanitas’s balcony and shotgunning countless Angry Orchards.

Vanitas could make Ventus the Tequila Sunrise he likes so much at two in the afternoon, Uber to Santa Monica, and cause all the havoc a couple of drunken idiots can in pretentious art galleries.

Ventus loves the holidays, and he loves his family even more. Where does Vanitas fit into that equation?

“Please?” Ventus asks again.

Ventus isn’t pushing him away now. He leaves the air mattress and crawls into Ventus’s bed once more, sharing his pillow and sharing his breaths. He can feel the emotion shining all over Ventus’s face as a slow smile spreads across his lips, but he can’t allow himself to name it.

An arm wraps around Vanitas’s waist, gentle and secure. Tethering him to reality, but not to his body the way it should. The way it always did before.

Here this boy is, the embodiment of sunshine and ocean waves, curling himself around a person who can’t even grieve his dead father. Who doesn’t feel anything for the only family he ever had.

“Is…” Ventus falters, sunlight dimming into the darkness, “...is this okay?” His fingers tap once against Vanitas’s waist, ready to draw away at the slightest provocation.

“Yeah. It’s okay.”

Fingers relax, laying flat against his rib cage. Ventus’s other hand comes up to his head, gently sweeping his bangs away from his face. Ocean blue bores into him the entire time. If he stops breathing, maybe he could hear the waves.

Vanitas exhales slowly. “I’m going back tomorrow. Will you come with me?”

His family missed him. He always rings in the new year with Terra and Aqua. For as long as Vanitas has known him, that tradition has not changed.

Ventus’s answer comes so quickly, breathed out against his skin. “Yeah. I will.”

Selfish.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ball and chain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very short chapter today. just one segment instead of the usual three, because it's a pivotal turning point and also because i'm evil, probably.
> 
> for added effect, i would recommend listening to 'seventeen' from the heathers musical as you read. you can listen to it on spotify, or here on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h80Sr15n4M

ii.

The days leading up to the new year bleed into each other, listless and lazy in a city without seasons. Vanitas lets them all roll over him, gentle like waves lapping at his toes on quiet mornings. This past week has been rejuvenating, bringing him closer to life the way blood flows back into a limb that he sat on wrong for far too long. It isn’t the same as it was before, but it’s better. Almost like he’s learning to walk again, clutching the closest countertop for support. That has to count for something.

He rings in the new year by going to bed at ten-thirty at night, waking up only when a body slots itself against his sometime in the early morning.

He truly wakes up to a ray of sunlight streaming through the curtains he forgot to close the night before. Gear and Void both sleep soundly in their own beds while Ventus dozes in his, arm snug against his waist, legs tangled between his own, and face pressed into the nape of his neck. He’s gotten clingier over this past week, much clingier than ever before, but Vanitas isn’t complaining. Being held is… pretty nice, actually. Maybe even better than just pretty nice. Something he would enjoy getting used to.

School won’t be a problem to start. Besides, without his classes and that financial aid money to fall back on, Vanitas would have nothing. His business Instagram, for as many rich clients from the parts of LA brimming with money as it nets him, isn’t enough to live on. More than enough to make sure that Void and Gear get the good brands of dog food and that Ventus can enjoy a Tequila Sunrise made with the good kind of centenario tequila that may cost thirty bucks but is worth every dollar, but not nearly enough to cover the cost of a one-bedroom to himself in this obscenely overpriced neighborhood.

Besides, why would he go to a place where Ventus isn’t? He tried that. He hated it.

The boy at his back is so warm.

Ventus stirs behind him, nuzzling deeper into the back of his neck. If Vanitas really lets himself feel, and maybe if he lets himself dream, he can feel something soft against the place where his hair ends but before where his t-shirt begins. Lips, pressed against sensitive skin. A promise of peace. Protection. Something else, that he still won’t name.

“Vanitas?” he whispers, voice thick with lingering sleep. “You awake?”

“Go back to sleep, Ventus.”

Ventus yawns. “Not if you’re going to stay up without me.”

Sunlight makes it hard for him to sleep. It always has. He prefers darkness, or as close as he can get to it. If he could get the curtains to stay shut, maybe he could pretend it isn’t morning outside.

“You’re warm,” Vanitas says.

“That a bad thing?” Words brush against the back of Vanitas’s neck as Ventus speaks, the hand on his stomach pulling him closer with a gentle but insistent pressure. He may never admit it out loud, but Vanitas is all too aware of the way he falls pliant at the touch.

“No.” Vanitas checks his phone for the time. He has another hour before he needs to feed Void and Gear and take them outside. Besides, they’re not up yet, either. There’s no class, no errands to run, no pressing matters to attend to. He has plenty of time to do nothing but let the day linger away with Ventus.

( _For six years, the old man rotted away in that bed. Unseeing of the walls beyond him._ _Vanitas used to fear finding his end at that same path. Maybe he still does._ )

Vanitas rolls over to face Ventus, pausing as the other boy tangles them together once more. He moves with such comfort, like the only place he’s ever belonged is in Vanitas’s bed. One arm remains wrapped around his waist, fingers rubbing tiny circles against his spine, but the other finds his hair, combing his messy spikes in every direction except the one they’re supposed to go. Ventus grins sleepily, softly, full of something vast and unexplainable.

Or maybe it is explainable. Maybe it’s the same reason why Vanitas took one look at the sea and knew that he’d never be whole if he couldn’t come stand on its shores whenever he wanted to.

Vanitas lets himself grin back, even if the pressure in his cheeks feels a little awkward, and revels in the way Ventus shines. Vanitas isn’t used to initiating any kind of gentle touch, which must explain the heaviness in his limbs as he reaches out for Ventus. He can feel the chill in his own fingers as he settles his hand on Ventus’s cheek. The way Ventus leans in to the touch is enough to tell Vanitas exactly how he feels about it.

Vanitas briefly debates about pulling him closer, maybe tucking him under his chin so they connect in a solid line from head to toe, but that would mean not getting to look at him any longer. Having that smile and everything within it directed at him is nice. Too nice to give up.

( _The old man had people who loved him, once. He had to. But between the war and whatever turned Eraqus from the man who would lay his life down for him on that battlefield to the disappointed voice on the other end of the phone, something within him shifted in a way that could never be put back together again. Maybe that’s what Vanitas fears more than becoming a prisoner in his own body: becoming the ball and chain dragging the person he loves down into rightful hatred, too selfish to let him go._ _Vanitas cannot, will not, allow himself to end up like that._ )

“Good morning,” Ventus says.

“Morning,” Vanitas forces himself to say back, suddenly feeling like an imposter. “Hungry?”

Ventus shakes his head. “Nah. It’s still early, isn’t it?” He sounds awake now, more alert than he was previously. “Hey, did I ever tell you how much I like your eyes? Because I do,” he says, his face tinting the slightest bit red but refusing to look away. “They’re nice.”

“Really? Because usually you call them weird, creepy, or like a raccoon that got caught rummaging in your garbage at three in the morning.” Vanitas says dryly. He wants to run his thumb along Ventus’s cheek, but his hand feels frozen in place.

Ventus laughs, and it should be a balm against the constant hum of something deep and wrong inside him. A salve to apply on the ever-growing void inside. It isn’t. A bright flash can obscure the secrets hidden in darkness, but it can never get rid of them. “They can be nice and still make you look like a weird raccoon sometimes.”

“Thank you, for that wonderful insight.”

Ventus laughs again, fingers moving from his head to trace the edge of his cheek. “Anytime.” They come to rest against his jawline, thumb sweeping along the edge of his lower lip. Warmth curls through him, lingering even as Ventus’s touch moves. “Happy new year, Vanitas. I’m glad you’re here with me.”

Ventus’s eyes linger on his own, before darting down to where his fingers lay, then back up. Soft. Warm. A silent request for permission.

Isn’t this what he’s always wanted?

It would be so easy to lean into his touch. Easy just as he’s made it easy before. Ventus is someone who is easy to make precious, easy to care for and to cherish.

Vanitas knows how Ventus has rung in every other new year, recounted to him in endless stories and - more recently - documented in Snapchat sagas. Even if he didn’t stay the night with Terra and Aqua, split between one of their three houses, he would inevitably drift back to them in the morning. They’d make omelettes in their pajamas and set off sparklers and shine like the sun.

Instead, Ventus is here. Away from his family, his friends. The others that cherish him so deeply.

Alone, save for Vanitas.

Ball and chain.

 

Ball and chain.

 

 

Vanitas has been selfish enough already.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back with some sad things, and some things that are not so sad!
> 
> the third segment has been one of my favorite scenes to write so far!!! luv these kids. luv vanitas making more friends. in my head the concert they're referring to is for a band called rainbow kitten surprise (and yes, that is their name), but honestly you can replace it with any indie band of your choice. just throw some names in a hat and pull one out and there you go. the lesser-known, the better.

ii.

This is pathetic. Even more pathetic than the shit Vanitas pulled when he was seventeen after getting his first phone. At least then his awful texting habits could be justified by a lack of experience. He never had a way to learn the unwritten rules that constitute texting someone back like a functional human being.

He should know better by now.

But no, he’s sitting in his lab section with his dominant hand in his pocket, counting down the seconds until a socially acceptable amount of time has passed for him to text Ventus. What he should be doing is jotting down Aced’s instructions on how to complete the lab write-up due at the end of the week so he doesn’t tear his hair out later on. His notebook remains blank, nothing written on it except today’s date.

The quarter has been fine so far. Yzma forced Vanitas into her office two days after classes started and refused to let him go until she outlined every single facet of her fifty step plan to keep him from dropping out for money reasons. He wasn’t going to tell her what happened, but apparently she found out because she’s close to his apartment manager, who saw the news through Facebook. Of fucking course.

Everyone who wasn’t there to clean out the old man’s garbage who knows found out through Facebook. His labmates laugh a little too loudly at his sour comments and frown too softly when he’s quiet. The look every last person gives him makes him want to claw his skin off. If he has to hear someone ask him with that _fucking tone_ if he’s okay, he can and will punch the well-meaning idiot. For fuck’s sake, they’re usually sadder than he is.

He’s the one with the dead bastard and the funeral that has has to skip lab for, not them. Why is he stuck comforting a bunch of strangers over something that he still doesn’t feel anything about? There aren’t enough curse words in the world to convey how frustrating this is.

Everyone is worried about him for no good reason. The initial shock of the old man croaking is gone, and honestly, Vanitas is pretty certain that the gaps in his mind where thoughts used to exist have always been there. They’re wider now, but so what? He doesn’t have time to dwell, not when he has to keep moving forward. There are classes to go to, reports to write up-

-texts he wants to send Ventus that have been sitting in his drafts for hours, written and rewritten so many times that he’s lost count. He really shouldn’t, regardless of how badly he wants to. Ventus has a life to live: classes to attend (or sleep through), pre-veterinary club meetings to run, RAs to decorate cookies or plant succulents or whatever with, and an entire floor’s worth of friends to keep up with. He doesn’t have time to dedicate every waking second to Vanitas.

Vanitas wishes he was here right now. They’ve barely seen each other since the quarter started and every moment apart tears at him. Not since the day when…

Well, when Vanitas shattered whatever fragile thing blossoming between them like the idiot he is.

He can’t allow himself to drag Ventus down the way he’s capable of. He can’t lock him away at his side, but even the sun doesn’t feel as warm without Ventus there to shine. He’s stuck, trapped between two wrong desires and unsure if anything is right.

Hands shoot up all around Vanitas, jolting him out of his thoughts. He glances around the small lab, realizing that he’s the only one with his hand still down. He had Aced as a TA last quarter and normally that kind of delay would be enough to justify dragging Vanitas to the front of the room and making him answer whatever question he just missed.

Aced’s gaze passes over him, impenetrable as always, but selects one of the raised hands. The unspoken apology makes him want to scream. Everyone treats him like he’s going to break and he hates it. He’s moving on, isn’t he? Why can’t they see that?

He didn’t even love the bastard who died. Why would he need to grieve someone he hated?

Fools, all of them.

Vanitas’s hand grips his phone. He fishes it out of his pocket and finally sends the text that he drafted hours ago to Ventus.

Five minutes pass without a response and Vanitas wishes he could go back in time and break his phone so he wouldn’t even have the chance to think about it.

Pathetic.

He’s able to pay some kind of attention through the end of class, but Aced stops him before he’s able to leave. Warily, he approaches the front of the lab, where Aced looms over him. “Yeah?”

“You’re stronger than I could be, Vanitas,” he says, much more grimly than someone who is trying to offer condolences, especially in such a ham-fisted way, should be. Spiders crawl across Vanitas’s skin, but he lets them roam. He won’t show weakness here.

“There’s no point in standing still. There’s only one way to go, and that’s forward.”

A large hand claps down on his shoulder, instinctively making him flinch. His hands rush towards Aced’s, years of training telling him to subdue his opponent, but he clenches them into fists and drags them back down to his sides before Aced figure out what just happened.

“That’s what makes you strong. I admire that. If you need anything, please let me know,” he says.

The _thanks_ Vanitas knows he should say turns to ash on his tongue. Instead, he chokes out, “Okay,” though it sounds much calmer than he feels. He almost wishes the numbness was back, because it’s moments like these that make him doubt if he’s actually doing okay. If he really thinks about it, he’s still a few shades off from normal.

But he’s moving forward. He can’t look back.

Vanitas’s phone vibrates in his pocket, and he nearly flings it onto the ground with the sheer amount of nervous energy he expels trying to dig it out. He unlocks the screen and a jolt of electricity, mingled with relief and tinged with the slightest bit of guilt, runs down his spine when he sees that Ventus replied to his text.

It isn’t anything substantial, nothing that Vanitas would normally even reply to. What are you supposed to say to a single text that just says _lol_? How does that continue a conversation? Vanitas stands in the middle of the Court of Sciences (aptly named for the courtyard that just about every single science-related building on campus is built around), letting students rushing to and from class buffet him on either side as he stares at his phone like a moron. He waits for another text to follow the first, but after three minutes, it’s obvious that nothing else is coming.

Biting back a groan, Vanitas takes off for the Bomb Shelter, which is the stupidest name for a food court he’s ever heard. Sure, it’s located down a flight of stairs in the middle of an open courtyard, but part of the roof is made of glass. Come on.

Vanitas goes for his usual order (roasted chicken, provolone, and banana peppers with extra vinaigrette on Italian bread), and claims a metal table for himself. Every outdoor area by a food place on campus is surrounded by these awful things. They’re so heavy and unwieldy that they’re a pain in the ass to move, and since they’re metal they freeze in the winter and become furnaces in the summertime. Apparently anywhere those chairs exist means that food has to be nearby, but they’re only that terrible so people don’t try to run off with them.

He pulls his phone out again and stares at his texts with Ventus. If Ventus isn’t busy, maybe they could have lunch together. His classes are all on this side of campus, so he wouldn’t be far. It’s late enough in the day that he’d be down here anyways.

Vanitas flips his phone over so he can no longer see the screen and tears into his sandwich. He can’t do that. Ventus takes up more of his thoughts than he used to, but Vanitas can never let him know that. He can’t be that ball and chain. He’d tear himself apart first if it meant keeping Ventus safe, even from himself.

Still, Vanitas misses him.

 

* * *

 

i.

Aqua moves on to high school alone, her head held high and her shoulders squared back. According to the snatches of conversation Vanitas overhears from Xehanort’s phone calls with Eraqus, Terra slinks out of juvie after six months into 400 hours of community service and at least a year’s worth of homeschooling.

Like a record on repeat, Ventus drifts closer to Vanitas once more. They’ve always talked during any class they share, but after Aqua and Terra both leave, he begins to seek Vanitas out in earnest.

They’ll play soccer together after finishing lunch behind the electrical box Vanitas has claimed as his own, spending more time attempting to kick the ball at each other than into a goalpost, or stand on the blacktop and fail to make free throws into the basketball hoop for half an hour straight. Other days they’ll spend tucked away in a corner, comparing the _nage-waza_ taught by their respective Sensei. Ventus likes showing off ones that he’s technically not advanced enough to know yet, but has seen Terra and Aqua do enough times to memorize the forms.

It’s easier not to think when they’re moving. It’s just as easy to goad Ventus into some kind of competition. As nice as the bragging rights are, it’s never about whether or not Vanitas wins. What it’s really about is keeping the fears that claw at his chest at bay, battered down by lungs burning from exertion and adrenaline screaming in his veins.

“So… what’s it like when you go home?” Ventus asks, dropping the hold he has on Vanitas’s jacket and abandoning the throw he was almost about to demonstrate on Vanitas. They’ve gotten pulled apart more than once for sharing techniques that some clueless adult mistook for violence, and Ventus isn’t apparently in the mood to get scolded today.

Which means instead he’s inclined to talk about _personal things_ , which is even worse than getting the wind knocked out of him.

“It’s normal. Fine. Why does it matter?”

Ventus groans. “You always do this! I ask you a simple question, and then you get all… all…”

“All what, Ventus?” Vanitas gets into his personal space, utilizing the growth spurt he’s suffered through over the past two months to its full advantage. It won’t last much longer, but he’ll take the inch-and-a-half he has over the other boy and run with it for as long as possible.

Ventus bares his teeth in a snarl, but his dumb braces (bright green now) eliminate any intimidation factor he could possibly have. “All defensive! Look at what you’re doing right now, trying to get up in my face and scare me!” Then, to twist the knife in the wound, he adds, “If things really were fine, you wouldn’t act like such a big jerk whenever I want to know more about your life!”

Vanitas steps back, rage coiling his muscles tight. “Shut up, Ventus! What do you even know?”

“I don’t know anything, and that’s the problem!”

“Maybe you would know something if you didn’t come crawling to me after Aqua and Terra leave you behind!”

The same rage pulling Vanitas taut like a string coils within Ventus, eyes bright with anger. He’s like the desert sun in late summer, searing everything in his path and making Vanitas want to wilt like a patch of unwatered grass.

But he won’t wilt; he squares his shoulders the same way he saw Aqua do whenever she had to defend Terra’s name from the other students, and refuses to budge. That doesn’t stop him from bracing for the hit he knows will come.

It never does.

To his credit, Ventus doesn’t cry. Still furious, he takes a deep, ragged breath and gives Vanitas the harshest glare he’s ever seen on the other boy’s face. “They’d never leave me behind. They’re my best friends. They - they can’t.”

Vanitas doesn’t respond, not with his words. He crosses his arms and glares back, waiting to see what Ventus will do next.

“And you’re my best friend too,” he continues. “I won’t leave you behind, so stop being stupid.”

Every smart-alec remark Vanitas had planned curls into wisps of smoke and dies in his chest, replaced by a heavy pressure that feels like it’ll drag him down into the earth. No one has ever said that to him before. No one ever promised to stay.

Xehanort insists that with death always on one’s heel, there’s no point in holding onto bonds that are doomed to fray. Even Eraqus, the one person who seems to indulge Xehanort’s endless lectures, exists on the fringes of his life. He doesn’t have anyone else.

Vanitas doesn’t believe in God, or Gods, or that there’s some kind of cosmic being stupid enough to create people, but that’s never stopped the nights where he squeezes his eyes shut and prays for the kind of family Ventus talks about.

He’s not even sure if he’s related to Xehanort by blood. Part of him hopes he isn’t, that he was some stray picked up off the street that Xehanort doesn’t know how to get rid of without going to jail. There are days when it’s easy to deny the pieces of Xehanort he sees when he looks in the mirror.

Xehanort would insist that his goals should stand above all else, and that he’d lose himself by letting someone else in.

But it sounds so nice, to have someone remain at his side.

“Sorry,” Vanitas says, the word tasting less ashy in his mouth than he expected. Xehanort demands complete obedience and quick apologies whenever Vanitas steps out of line, but Vanitas doesn’t give that to other people. They never deserve it.

“And sorry for breaking your arm when we were six,” Vanitas adds hastily. “Don’t think I ever apologized for that.”

Ventus’s laugh comes as a shock, setting him alight but quick to soothe his frazzled nerves. Some voice in the back of his mind whispers that he could never get tired of that sound. “Really? You’re apologizing for that _now?_ In that case, I’m sorry for punching you in the face so hard you lost a tooth.”

“You lost a tooth too.”

“Then we’re even, aren’t we?”

“...Yeah. I guess we are.”

Vanitas still doesn’t tell him about the life he lives behind closed doors, and he won’t for a much longer time, but it’s a start.

 

* * *

 

iii.

Vanitas is halfway through the only Jane Austen novel he’s never read ( _Sense and Sensibility,_ really? How the hell did he read _Emma_ before this one?) when his ringtone begins to blare. Gear looks up from her place on his foot at the sound, and he takes the opportunity to swing his feet to the ground and check to see who could possibly be calling him on a Thursday evening.

It shouldn’t be a client. He’s met with Drizella and her yappy Chihuahua enough times that even someone as thick-headed as her shouldn’t need to call him just to confirm that yes, he’s coming to her fancy condo in Beverly Hills tomorrow, just like he’s done for the past month.

He leans over his phone and sees Xion’s name illuminate his screen. She has that concert tonight - why would she need to call him? Unless…

Vanitas snatches his phone off the table and answers the call instantly. “Xion?” he asks. “What’s going on?”

“ _Vanitas! Hi! Are you doing anything right now?_ ” Her voice sounds distant and slightly distorted. Other voices, both deeper than hers, clamor in the background. He can’t make out what they’re saying, though judging from their tones, it doesn’t sound great.

“Am I on speakerphone?” Vanitas asks, slumping back onto his couch as Gear claims a new place on his hip. She kicks his thigh in a clear show of displeasure, but Vanitas strokes a finger down her muzzle and that’s enough to calm her down.

“ _Oh, yes, sorry!_ ” she says. “ _Axel, please get off me - Roxas, really!?_ ”

“What are you _doing_?” Vanitas asks warily. “What happened to that concert you were supposed to go to?”

“ _Heeeey, so is this the Vanitas guy I’ve heard so much about?_ ” an unfamiliar voice says, growing louder after a short cloud of static. Did he just grab Xion’s phone to speak into it? “ _Name’s Axel. Now tell me, what are your feelings on indie rock?_ ”

“ _They’re not indie rock!”_ Roxas protests angrily - at least, Vanitas thinks it must be Roxas. He barely remembers the guy’s voice. “ _Axel, stop saying that!”_

“ _Axel, at least let me talk to my own frie-_ ” Xion’s sentence is cut off in a strangled protest. What are they _doing_ there? Vanitas takes a moment to suspiciously regard his own phone.

“It’s, uh, fine. I’ve heard worse garbage,” Vanitas says slowly. “...Why?”

“ _Perfect! See, Roxas, Xion, and I were supposed to go to this concert tonight. I guess Xion’s already told you about it, if she talks about us to you as much as she talks about you to us. But I… may have forgotten about the meeting I have with my faculty advisor tonight, so I can’t go. The show’s sold out too, and it’d be a waste not to use the ticket._ ”

“ _If_ _you had remembered earlier, we could have sold it on Facebook!_ ” Roxas says.

“ _What’s done is done, Roxas. Water under the bridge and all that._ ” Whatever Roxas says next is cut off in a strangled yelp. Finally, Vanitas realizes why they keep making those sounds - Axel’s probably shoving his hand into their faces or over their mouths to shut them up. Vanitas should have recognized it earlier, given how many times he’s done the exact same thing.

“ _Anyways, I’ll sell my ticket to you for thirty bucks. Call it the friend of a friend discount. What do you say?_ ” Axel finishes.

Axel shouts. Something rustles before Xion’s voice makes its way back to the forefront of the clamor. “ _Please come, Vanitas! It’ll be a lot of fun, and I think you and Roxas could be good friends._ ”

Vanitas snorts at the same time that static crackles through the phone, followed by Xion’s laughter ringing into the quiet evening air. “ _See?_ ” she says. “ _You both snorted at the same time._ ”

“How long is this concert going to be?”

“ _Three hours, probably?_ ” Axel says. “ _Think they’re playing the Wiltern over in K-tow-_ ”

“-I know where the Wiltern is, thanks,” Vanitas says. Pretty much all of Central LA is too glitzy for his tastes most of the time, but speeding under the neon lights lining Wilshire Boulevard late at night with the windows down and music blaring out his stereo has its own appeal. He doesn’t have much experience with concerts, but he’s driven by that building enough times over the last five years to recognize it. Hard not to notice a teal skyscraper and the giant name of the building hovering over his head in neon red letters.

“ _So will you come?_ ” Xion asks again.

Vanitas hums, deliberately drawing out the sound. “You got the tickets for thirty-five, right? Five dollars off isn’t much of a discount.”

“ _T_ _hat’s not counting the service fee or tax. Really, you’re getting a steal,_ ” Axel says.

“ _I still can’t believe tickets were that expensive,_ ” Roxas grumbles in the background. “ _Who am I turning into…_ ”

“ _See? Thirty is Roxas’s limit, and the kid goes to at least one concert a month. You can’t get a better deal than this,_ ” Axel says.

Vanitas grins to himself. He didn’t get where he was by accepting the first offer. “Doubt it. Bet I could find a ticket on Stubhub for seven bucks right now.”

“ _Vanitas… what are you doing?_ ” Xion asks, but the question is pointless. She’s seen how he messages his clients. She should know this dance by now.

“Give the ticket to me for fifteen and I’ll go.”

“ _What!? Are you crazy? I might as well be giving it away for free!_ ” Axel protests.

“You’re not giving it away for free. You’re selling it for fifteen bucks you don’t currently have.”

Static crackles directly into the phone. Vanitas recognizes the sound; Axel must be breathing out a sigh. “ _Twenty-five,_ ” he says.

“Eighteen.”

“ _Twenty!_ ”

Vanitas grins. Nailed it. “Deal. Do you have Venmo?”

Axel begrudgingly gives Vanitas his username. Twenty dollars less and twenty minutes later, Vanitas is sitting in his car, waiting for his friend and her stupid best friend to arrive. Originally, Roxas was going to take his truck to the concert, but why take a pickup with two-and-a-half seats when they could take a normal four-passenger car that can actually fit into a compact parking space?

Besides, Roxas is a freshman, and there’s no way a freshman who just moved to the city knows where to find free parking. He’d blow twenty bucks parking in the concert’s lot when Vanitas can easily find metered parking three blocks away.

Really, the choice was obvious.

Xion and Roxas come into view a minute later, both craning their necks and squinting in an attempt to figure out if it’s really Vanitas in the car. He rolls the window down and sticks his head out. “Do you really think there’d be some other car just hanging out here at seven at night for no reason? Get over here.”

Xion breaks into a grin and rushes towards Vanitas, with Roxas hot on her heels. They’re both eager, but there’s something bright in Roxas’s face that he can see even in the weak light streaming down from the street lamps overhead. Vanitas belatedly notices that they’re wearing similar shirts - one black, one blue - and each emblazoned with what Vanitas assumes is the band’s name. Xion’s shirt is clearly a size too big for her, hastily tucked into a black skirt. Roxas’s, meanwhile, actually fits him, the hem ending a little after the dark flannel tied around his waist.

Vanitas spares a glance at his own clothes: an oversized black hoodie with a hole in the sleeve from when Gear was a puppy and still chewed on everything she saw, and black jeans. Yeah, he’ll fit in just fine.

Xion slides into the passenger seat with ease, leaving Roxas to take the back. “Thank you for driving us, Vanitas. I hope you’re excited to go.”

“I hope you know that I’ve never heard of this band before,” Vanitas responds, pulling out of his driveway and onto the road. His phone mount stays empty; he doesn’t need directions to get to one of the biggest roads in the entire city, especially when he lives less than a mile away from said road.

“We’re changing that. Now,” Roxas demands, and from the rearview mirror Vanitas can see him lean forward in his seat. “Got an aux cord?”

“Who do you think I am?” Vanitas says, grabbing the cord sticking out of the main console and passing it back to Roxas. Satisfied, the boy takes it and plugs it into his phone. Moments later, an unfamiliar voice croons in his car. The song, as it crashes into a start, has the kind of sound that Vanitas can only describe as belonging to an indie band. Other than that, it’s hard to categorize.

“This is his favorite song,” Xion explains as Roxas nods along to the beat. “He plays it constantly.”

“You like it too, Xion,” Roxas shoots back. “You know all the words!”

Xion giggles. “I do.”

The drive is surprisingly... nice. Roxas and Xion balk at the lines of red tail-lights that stretch on for forever in front of them, but this level of traffic isn’t bad for the time of day. Rush hour lasts half the day in this city on a good day, but Vanitas has grown used to the constant streams of traffic. It gives Vanitas more time to listen to band’s discography.

Roxas is less of a poser than Vanitas originally thought. He fills in the gaps between songs with endless trivia, explaining where the band came from and what inspired the song that just came to an end. He’s a little sullen, and he lacks the gentleness that Xion holds close, but he’s tolerable. There’s something comforting about people who aren’t all sunshine and rainbows.

Maybe it’s just that they make him feel less weird about himself.

Most of all, it’s interesting to see how Xion and Roxas interact with each other. They’ve only been friends for less than a year, having bonded over sharing the same awful TA their first quarter here, but Vanitas wouldn’t be able to tell that from the sheer level of comfort they have around each other.

“We’re actually living together next year,” Xion says, smiling to herself. “Axel’s current roommate got off the waitlist for the graduate housing, so the other room in his apartment is open. Roxas and I are going to be roommates!”

“It’ll be the best. We’ll get to spend every single day together. I still can’t believe it,” Roxas adds. “My current roommates are fine, but they’re moving into their frat next year. It wouldn’t have worked out.”

“And my own roommate wants to dorm again, but I’d really like to have a kitchen,” Xion says. “Do you ever wish you had a roommate, Vanitas?”

“Nope.”

“You just have dogs, right? The ones Xion always posts on Instagram?” Roxas asks.

“Those are the ones.”

“They’re cool,” Roxas says, nodding to himself.

That Axel guy is still suspect, but that’s enough in Vanitas’s mind for Roxas to get a pass. He wouldn’t go to brunch with the guy, but something like this? If the concert is as worth it as Roxas thinks it is, Vanitas could be convinced to go again.

Speaking of Axel, something else occurs to Vanitas. “Wait a minute. If you two are freshmen, then how the hell is Axel’s roommate getting into grad housing?”

“I never told you?” Xion asks, completely baffled. “Axel’s a PhD student. He’s in his…” she trails off, glancing back at her friend. “Roxas, do you remember what year he’s in?”

“Third, I think?” Roxas crosses his arms over his chest and frowns. “If we can even believe him about that.”

“We’ve known him all year, and we _still_ have no idea what he’s studying,” Xion adds.

“We didn’t even know until he said he couldn’t get lunch with us because he had to go teach a section! Can you believe that?” Roxas huffs. “I don’t get him sometimes.”

“Come on, Roxas, you know he just likes to joke around.”

“Every time I think I know him, he drops some new bombshell on us! Seriously, we’re gonna see him on Saturday and he’s gonna show up to dinner with his spouse. It’ll happen.”

Vanitas nearly chokes on his laughter. He doesn’t know which is funnier: the scenario, Roxas’s petulant voice, or the way Xion tilts her head like she’s _seriously_ considering this as something that could realistically happen. God, these people are ridiculous.

“I don’t know… I’ve never seen him wear a ring before.”

Vanitas bursts into laughter. Xion breaks down giggling, and even Roxas snickers in the backseat.

It’s nice, in an unfamiliar way.

Roxas and Xion may balk and stammer at how easily Vanitas finds parking (he has _experience_ , okay, even if parking in K-Town is a nightmare at the best times), but the massive line outside the venue as they approach shows exactly what Axel meant by the show being sold out.

The outside of the venue isn’t much to comment on, in Vanitas’s eyes. Red and blue neon lights light up the front, proudly announcing the same band that Vanitas just spent the past half hour listening to. The rest of the building stretches towards the sky, looking almost gray in the hazy nighttime lighting.

It’s very LA.

They get in line, joining the scores of chattering fans eagerly waiting to be let in. Roxas brightens more and more with each step, a different version of the evening sky than Xion. He’s the last rays escaping to the sky before the night overtakes the day - defiant, proud, a little desperate for survival.

It puts Vanitas at ease, being around these two twilight kids.

The bouncer at the door checks Vanitas’s ID as Xion and Roxas deliberately ignore him to keep walking. He shoves his driver’s license at the man and begrudgingly accepts the wristband the man offers before pushing through the crowd to join them again. Roxas has all three of their tickets saved on his phone and there is no way in hell Vanitas is lingering outside here while they go in.

Xion gets caught up at the bag check, being the only one out of the three to actually have a bag. Vanitas stops at Roxas’s side. The boy glances at him briefly and offers something that could easily be mistaken for a smile. “This is gonna be so fun. You’ll love it.”

And Vanitas wants to believe him.

Xion loops her bag over her shoulder and joins them once more. Roxas takes the lead, letting the attendant at the door scan his phone and usher them all inside.

The venue’s lobby looks like a ballroom. Intricate panelings and lights that look almost like chandeliers hang over their heads, the entire area bathed in a golden light. They pass by a burgeoning merch stand, t-shirts and vinyls proudly displayed behind a black countertop. Roxas spares it a long glance, but his eyes settle on the shirt that both he and Xion currently wear, and he keeps moving.

They pass by a concession stand and a small bar, the latter of which is packed with people. Xion looks meaningfully at Vanitas, but he shakes his head. One beer nursed over three hours won’t kill any of them, but he stands by what he told her before. He doesn’t drink alone, and there’s no way either of them are old enough to buy alcohol.

Vanitas looks down at the neon wristband standing out against his hoodie like an eyesore and finally realizes its purpose. They must give one to everyone over twenty-one.

Vanitas shrugs to himself. Doesn’t matter now. Instead, he focuses his attention on following Roxas and Xion into the actual venue. Scores of people are packed into the area by the stage. Behind them are rows of seats, where people sit in relative comfort.

No one is on the stage yet, but the instruments for the opening act are all set up. Roxas sets his sights for a spot closer to the stage and pushes through the crowd with a single-minded determination. Xion grasps onto his hand right before he disappears through a crowd of hipsters, and she clings to Vanitas’s hand as well to lead him deeper into the fray.

He scowls at first, shocked by the sudden touch, but he lets the two of them push and jostle people around until they’ve secured a small spot about ten feet away from the stage. No one is very tall between the three of them, which is probably why Roxas chose to stand behind a group of girls even shorter than Xion.

Xion lets Vanitas go at the same time that Roxas’s own hand drops back to his side. His grin takes up his entire face as he faces Xion and Vanitas. “This spot is perfect!” he shouts over the din of a thousand (and Vanitas _wishes_ he was exaggerating that) other voices.

The opening act comes onto stage, some small-time band that only Roxas seems to know. They sound fine, but they don’t connect with the crowd in any meaningful way. Xion nods her head along to the beat and Roxas shouts in encouragement to the band’s banter on stage, but Vanitas is content to observe.

When the opening act ends with a final strum of their electric guitar and a peace sign as they scurry off stage, the lights brighten and the cacophony of voices return.

“If you need to go to the bathroom, do it now. We have about half an hour between acts,” Roxas says, looking at Vanitas.

“What’s with all the dead time?” Vanitas asks, frowning.

Roxas gestures to the stage, where the opening act dutifully carts their gear backstage. “Gotta set up.”

“I guess. But fighting through this crowd? No thanks.” It seems to have only gotten thicker, people jostling up against him as they fight for a good space to stand. Vanitas scowls and suppresses the urge to shove everyone away, though he does elbow some random guy who decides it’s okay to keep bumping into him.

At some point the acrid smell of weed floats through the room. Given the type of people in this room, Vanitas isn’t surprised that someone snuck in a joint. The entire room fills with more people than Vanitas thought was humanly possible. He steals a glance at Roxas and Xion, both watching a new set of instruments being dragged on stage by attendants. Xion notices him staring and offers him a small, if somewhat confused, smile.

Vanitas shakes his head and waits for the headliner to start.

When the band finally comes on stage, it’s to a chorus of deafening screams and dimming lights. Both Roxas and Xion are jumping and screaming their lungs out, excitement bleeding from every pore. Vanitas feels himself grinning, their joy contagious. The first song roars to life in a flash of light and electric guitar riffs as the frontman croons into a microphone.

The entire crowd - Roxas and Xion included - dance to the fast melody. The crowd sings along, both Roxas and Xion never missing a word. They both shine, vibrant and ridiculously alive, and Vanitas starts to understand why they like concerts so much.

The band plays for nearly two hours straight, crashing into song after song. They move from electric dance songs to crooning ballads with an ease that could only come from years of practice. The frontman dances across the stage as he sings, moving as if completely unafraid of the tangle of cords underneath his feet. He never once trips.

It’s impressive. Time slips through Vanitas’s fingers with ease. When the final song ends and they rush off stage, Vanitas is left with a sudden feeling of emptiness. Realistically, they’ve been standing here for a while, but it somehow feels incomplete.

And yet no one moves, the venue still just as packed as it had been all night. Roxas, his voice hoarse from singing along to every single song, whoops and claps his hands together with the rest of the crowd. Xion keeps clapping too, grinning.

Vanitas leans over to Xion. “Isn’t it over?” he asks.

“There’s gonna be an encore!” she replies happily. “There always is! We just have to wait.” With that, she cheers in a wordless shout.

With a shrug, Vanitas joins them and begins to clap. After a couple minutes, the band runs back onto stage, shrugging their instruments back on and going directly into another high-energy song. The crowd’s screams resolve in a singular shout of wordless joy as the music flows through the room.

After about four more songs, the concert finally ends. The band leaves the stage, bowing and shouting their thanks to the crowd’s cheers, and the lights brighten once more. People slowly filter out of the venue, giving Vanitas room to roll his shoulders and breathe.

Both Roxas and Xion’s hair sticks to their faces with sweat, but their matching grins are unmistakable for anything but exhilaration. “So?” Roxas asks, his voice cracking from the effort, “How’d you like it?”

Vanitas hums. “For twenty bucks? I’d go again.”

Laughing, Roxas lifts his fist to Vanitas. Vanitas has been around enough beach dudebros to know what to do next. He bumps their knuckles together.

“I’m so happy you liked it!” Xion adds, hopping to their side. “I wanted your first concert to be a good one.”

“I feel a little proud, you know?” Roxas says. “Xion and I got to be here for your first concert!”

“You’re a real adult now,” Xion says, nodding.

Vanitas gives them both a flat look. “I’m older than both of you. By a lot.”

The two pipsqueaks burst into giggles, but Vanitas can’t find it in himself to be legitimately upset. Xion’s his friend, and… well, maybe Roxas can be, too. It’s easy to get roped into their happy chatter as they leave, nodding along as they talk about their favorite songs and the differences between the album versions and the live renditions of the songs they just heard.

Halfway back to his car, a question hits Vanitas.

“Xion.”

“Yes?” Xion asks.

“Why did you invite me? Did Naminé say no or something?”

Xion comes to a stop, frowning. Roxas shoots Vanitas an indecipherable look. Vanitas scowls at him, reflexive in the same way he kicks at doctor’s appointments when the doctor taps his knee. “She didn’t ask Naminé to come. She suggested inviting you the moment Axel said he couldn’t go,” he explains.

“You said you had never been to a concert before, so you were the first person I thought to ask. I was so happy when you said yes,” Xion says. Despite her words, there’s something sad in her voice that plunges guilt into Vanitas’s chest like a knife. He winces, an apology bubbling in his throat without his permission.

“Sorry,” he bites out, the word less bitter on his tongue than it’s been in years. It hurts less when it’s genuine.

“Vanitas, you don’t need to be sorry. It’s okay. _I’m_ sorry, if I made you think I didn’t want you here!” Xion insists, stepping towards him. “You can hang out with us whenever! I bet Axel would agree, too. Right, Roxas?”

“Yeah! You’re not so bad,” Roxas says.

“Roxas!”

“What?”

Despite himself, Vanitas chuckles. “You’re not so bad either, kid. Even if you are a poser.”

“Oh yeah? Look who’s talking! The first time I saw you, you were wearing a _muscle tank_!”

“They’re comfortable!” Vanitas protests, biting back a laugh. Besides, if he’s going to schmooze with beach dudebros, he might as well try to blend in a little more.

Xion doubles over, giggling. “See? I knew you two would get along.” Before Vanitas can protest that insulting each other isn’t really getting along, she straightens up and continues to speak. “Roxas and I like getting food after concerts. Would you be okay with that, Vanitas? I already know where I want to go, and it isn’t too far from here.”

“Food tastes better after concerts,” Roxas says, nodding like that’s a scientifically proven fact. Vanitas shoots him a look that he hopes conveys just how full of bullshit he thinks that statement is, but he _could_ go for some food. Besides, maybe it’d be nice to spend a little more time out before heading back. He could stand to be a little tired tomorrow.

“I have nothing better to do,” Vanitas says, shrugging. Roxas and Xion both cheer, assuring him that the food is _so good, really!_ And that _it’s super cheap, too!_

And they’re right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: nobody except isa has any idea what axel is studying. every time someone asks him what it is, he makes up something new, like "underwater basket weaving" or "drying paint". roxas is partially convinced that even axel doesn't know what he's getting a PhD in.
> 
> also, axel isn't his legal name. it's the remnant of an inside joke from his first year in his program that he's refused to let go. don't tell roxas and xion. they don't know that yet.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, when i first wrote this: atla i need your advice. which disney character is ven's middle school gf
> 
> middle school is the most awkward and most hilarious part of a young teen's life, and i will gladly play this up to my advantage. if you're out of middle school, i really hope you feel some good ol' secondhand embarrassment during the first part of this chapter. if you're IN middle school and reading this... oh my god. please don't let me know that. once upon a time i was also in middle school reading kh fic, but i don't want to think about how old i am and how young you are oh my god
> 
> also there's a pretty big reveal that happens during this chapter too i guess
> 
> ALSO ALSO this fic broke 100 kudos!!!! thank you so much for reading and for enjoying! i hope you will continue to enjoy it as we keep moving forward!!!! next goal: 420 kudos (blaze it)

i.

“She knows so many martial arts, Vanitas! Not just judo. Jiu jitsu and taekwondo and hapkido, too. Have you ever heard of hapkido before? I haven’t. That’s how cool she is.”

The girl Ventus won’t shut up about is pretty, in the way that girls are. Bright red ringlets spill down her shoulders, contrasting with porcelain pale skin and the freckles that dot her nose. She sits two rows and three seats to the left of Vanitas in their only shared class, which is probably why he’s never taken much note of her before. Looking at her would mean looking away from the whiteboard _and_ looking away from the back of Ventus’s head, which is always begging to have wads of paper thrown at it.

“That’s great, Ventus,” Vanitas says dryly, picking at the grass by his leg. They sit on a tiny slab of concrete, backs pressed an electrical box that they’re definitely not allowed to be near but hang out by anyways. The same one that Vanitas used to eat lunch by, completely alone.

“We had a free day today during P.E., so we walked some laps and Merida told me all about the sports she does. She’s good at martial arts, but apparently she’s even better at archery.” Ventus sighs, sounding entirely like a lovestruck girl in a tv show. It makes Vanitas scowl. “Isn’t that so cool?”

“I guess.” Vanitas lets his head thump against the electrical box. It’s bad enough listening to Ventus talk about Terra and Aqua all the time. He’s done it for so many years that Vanitas has grown used to their names being sprinkled across Ventus’s chatter. He doesn’t see them every day, but every single Monday means a new story about Terra and Aqua without fail. Now that Terra is out of juvie and locked firmly into homeschool, Ventus is especially eager to make up for lost time with him.

They’re Ventus’s best friends. Even if Vanitas doesn’t like it, they were here first. He has to accept their presence.

This Merida girl is different. She was nothing more than a raised hand in his peripheral vision until one day she suddenly wasn’t.

It continues like that for the next two weeks. She becomes the focal point of Ventus’s life, drawing him close in a way that’s entirely different from the kinship he has with Terra and Aqua. His grin turns stupid when he talks about her, filling Vanitas with a type of rage he doesn’t fully understand.

When free from prying eyes during his walk home from the bus stop, he punches fences and kicks trash cans over. He hasn’t spoken more than a sentence to this girl, but he hates her. He hates her just as much as he hates the fear that lances through his gut when he sees Ventus’s eyes soften at the sound of her name.

“Hey, you know the winter dance next Friday? I think… I’m gonna ask Merida to go with me,” Ventus announces during a different lunch, right as Vanitas is in the middle of a soggy chicken sandwich. It turns to lead in his throat and he hacks up the half-chewed remains. Ventus is off in his own world, so distracted that he doesn’t even bother to comment on how gross Vanitas is currently being.

“Why are you telling me?” Vanitas says, grabbing his milk carton to take a swig of but crushing it in his grip. The liquid, cold and clammy, runs over his hand.

“I’m gonna ask her to be my girlfriend.” Every last drop of milk is squeezed out of that thing’s lifeless corpse, making a complete mess of Vanitas’s lunch. Disgusted, he flings it to the ground, letting the patty self-destruct all over the grass. Ventus’s head raises slightly, as if he just thought of a new idea. “Hey, you should ask a girl out to the dance, too. I bet my mom would drive all four of us. That’d be fun, right?”

Vanitas scowls. The thought that next occurs to him isn’t one that he’s ever bothered to dwell on before. He’s never had a reason to. Now that it’s been brought up, roused from a deep slumber, he turns it over and over in his mind. The more he thinks of it, the truer it feels.

He never stopped to think about the constant shift between day and night. How the sun creeps over the horizon in the morning, only to retreat once more. It simply is - not something that ever needed to be paid any attention until the rare moments when the equilibrium shifts.

“I don’t like girls,” Vanitas says. “Why would I ever ask one out?”

Ventus’s nose scrunches up as he considers Vanitas’s answer, deep in thought. A sudden fear squeezes Vanitas’s heart in an icy grip. He’s never even _thought_ about it before, so why is he so scared of what Ventus thinks? Ventus rarely thinks of anything, even on a good day.

“Okay,” Ventus says. “Then you should ask a boy out to the dance, so the four of us can go together.”

It’s that simple.

Except something about it still feels wrong. “Nah. Dances suck.” Which is true, because they definitely do, but Vanitas’s throat still feels tight and he can’t explain why.

“You suck!” Ventus says, punching him in the arm. “I’m still gonna go. I’m asking her out tomorrow.”

“Whatever,” Vanitas says, getting to his feet. He ignores his discarded lunch tray and his growling stomach and the tightness in his throat. “I’m bored. Let’s do something. Show me that new kaeshi-waza you said Aqua did against Terra. I know you know it too.”

Ventus does, countering Vanitas’s moves effortlessly, but his touch feels like fire in a way it never has before. Electricity races up and down his spine, mingling with the thought that once he asks Merida out, Ventus will dedicate his lunches to her instead.

The next twenty-four hours drag against Vanitas’s skin. Xehanort scolds him for his sloppy _ukemi_ and he’s forced to work himself ragged through dinner, throwing himself into their carpet over and over until he learns how to properly break his falls. Bruises bloom along his side as a result. No one will see them, so Vanitas tries not to see them either.

He doesn’t sleep well that night. When he does, his dreams are set against the backdrop of the desert sunset, beautiful and lonely. He keeps waiting for Ventus to come watch it with him, but he never does.

When lunch finally barrels into Vanitas, Ventus is nowhere to be found. Vanitas hasn’t eaten since the day before, skipping breakfast because he was running late to the bus _again_ and unlike elementary school it’s too far even to run, but a different feeling gnaws at him more heavily than his hunger.

He prowls around campus until he finds a halo of red ringlets and the girl attached to them. Ventus’s face is redder than her hair as he stands in front of her, hands shaking like leaves in the wind as he holds out a ticket to her.

He can’t hear their words, but the girl leans forward and presses her lips against his. There’s no time for anyone to react before she pulls away and says something else that makes Ventus’s eager face splinter to nothing. His hands still shake, but the reason changes.

Part of Vanitas hurts to see him so upset, but another part of himself - the childish part, or maybe the part that explains why sometimes Xehanort calls him a monster - revels in a sick joy. Vanitas sticks to the shadows the classrooms cast over him as he slinks back to the electrical box only to bury his face into his knees and scream.

Cloth shifts. A body drops down next to his. He doesn’t need to look up to know who it is.

“She said no,” Ventus says, and that’s all he says for the rest of the day.

 

* * *

 

ii.

Ventus, Terra, and Aqua all live in the dorms. They call it The Hill, because all the dormitories and dining halls are located on various parts of a giant fucking hill. It’s stupid and Vanitas hates it, but every single asshole that has ever lived in the dorms only ever calls it The Hill. It’s infuriating.

But he’s here now, in the towering residential hall at the very top. Vanitas had to climb so many sets of stairs just to get up here only to have to wait outside the back door for some sap to unintentionally let him in on their way out. His ID card isn’t coded to let him inside the building.

Currently, winter sunlight filters into the floor lounge that’s mostly unoccupied save for himself, Ventus, and Aqua. It’s a carbon copy of the lounge on Ventus’s floor - a large table placed by a whiteboard and a poster wall covered in tips the RA was forced to make sits towards the back of the lounge, a few smaller tables are off to the side of the room, and a small circle of couches and leather chairs perch in the corner - but the way Aqua sits with complete comfort shows that this is her domain. Her face adorns the wall every single person sees when they step out of the elevator, after all.

Terra is the RA of the adjacent half of the floor, and though it’s on the same physical floor as Aqua, it’s considered a different community of ninety-something residents. Vanitas considers the whole thing stupid.

Even if pets were allowed, he still wouldn’t have dormed. Too many screaming freshman stumbling into their dorms from Thursday night frat parties to deal with. Not even the food would be worth it, not when Ventus pushes a pesto pizza and raspberry lemonade over to him the moment he drops into the seat across from him.

“Hello, Vanitas,” Aqua says, sticking the bookmark Terra made her for Christmas into her novel and setting it off to the side, away from the spread of textbooks in front of Ventus. The title looks vaguely familiar, probably belonging to some literary classic she’s forced to read and then write a fifteen-page paper on for one of her Lit classes. He’d never understand how she could find a Comparative Literature and Classics double major _fun_.

He flips open the pizza container - still piping hot, thank god - but he can’t shake off the sympathy in her eyes that crawls down his shoulders. Before she even says the magic words, he understands why she set her book off to the side. She wants to have a _conversation_.

“How are you doing?” she asks, her voice soft. She’s in RA mode, ready to pull out every counseling technique in the book and fake-therapist him to death. He’s only seen her a handful of times since he spirited Ventus away from her and since the quarter began, so it was only a matter of time before she asked.

It’s always the same. Never a simple _how are you_. No, it’s always _how are you doing_ , echoed in the same cadence across a litany of voices. Just the sound makes him want to tear his hair out.

Translation: _How do you feel about your dead parent today?_

Vanitas pulls off a slice of pizza and tears into it. “I’m here, aren’t I?” he snaps. The pesto sauce scorches his mouth, but he forces himself not to flinch. Instead, he directs all of his energy towards making sure Aqua understands how fucking _tired_ he is of that question. Ventus frowns beside her.

There’s a tiny voice in Vanitas’s head that sounds suspiciously like Ventus, tittering angrily in his ear about how it isn’t Aqua’s fault. It’d be a bigger dick move for her to act like nothing ever happened, after all. Even if it’d grant him a reprieve from this condolences bullshit, she’s a decent person. And having your only family member die three weeks ago is the kind of thing decent people express sympathy for.

But Vanitas has never wanted sympathy. He doesn’t want to stare into watery eyes when he knows, deep in his bones, that he’ll never cry for the old man.

Aqua normally has no patience when it comes to Vanitas, so it’s a wonder that she doesn’t shut him down. Instead, she tries another path. “How are classes going? You must be approaching midterms, right? Three isn’t too heavy of a workload for you?”

Vanitas rolls his eyes. “First off, you’ve been here longer than I have.” She and Terra both deferred their enrollment for a year so they could graduate with Ventus or whatever, but even with that, she’s rounding out her fifth year here. “I know you haven’t seen a midterm since you were a freshman, but you’re around enough of them to know that midterms last from week two to week nine. So yes, I have midterms. And no, three is fine. Great, even.”

His tragic backstory may have been enough for the financial aid office to express their own condolences in the form of a thirty-five-thousand dollar grant for the year, but if he drops below full-time status he won’t be able to pay rent. It’s as simple as that. He doesn’t have a choice _but_ to keep taking classes.

“Have you told your professors yet?” she asks.

“Yeah. They know,” he says, hearing the whine in his own voice. He’s the furthest thing from a kid after everything that’s happened, but he sounds like one right now and it grates on him. He rips another piece off his pizza and chews. Still hot, but the burn doesn’t hurt as much this time around.

Aqua nods. “Good.” She squares her shoulders and forces something closer to a smile onto her face. “Look, Vanitas. You and I haven’t really gotten along, but it doesn’t have to be that way. If you ever need someone just to listen, my door is open.”

Vanitas finally breaks eye contact to glare down at his pizza, doubt swirling within him. “Yeah, yeah,” he mutters. He can practically hear the cogs angrily spinning inside of Ventus’s head, ready to chew him out for being dismissive.

Ventus stays silent, his eyes never leaving Vanitas, his frown never waning. Like there’s some invisible barrier he’s afraid of crossing. Ventus’s wariness stings and relieves Vanitas in equal parts. He can’t let Ventus come too close. He can’t drag him down.

It’s not like he’d ever realistically take Aqua up on her offer. How could he? He just… he couldn’t.

It’s fine.

He can handle this on his own.

He always has.

Throat feeling suddenly dry, Vanitas snatches his water bottle out of his backpack and heads towards the floor’s fountain. Despite what the signs may say, the water tastes too shitty to actually be filtered. Still, something deep in his gut tells him that the sugar in the raspberry lemonade would just make him nauseous right now, so shitty water it is.

He hears footsteps behind him, but he pays them no mind. Too many people live on this floor for him to care about the presence of another person. He only looks up when they stop by the fountain.

“Yes, Ventus?” Vanitas asks, his heart plummeting into his stomach at the way Ventus refuses to meet his eyes. He’s not annoyed, even if he sounds like it. He hopes Ventus can figure that out.

“Do you have plans tonight?” Ventus asks hesitantly. “We haven’t hung out all quarter. It’s weird.”

Vanitas snorts. “Since when do _I_ ever have plans?” Aside from business, that is, but he tries to avoid training sessions at night. Traffic is better, but chasing after teacup poodles in the dark is a pain in the ass. Vanitas squints at him as he remembers something else. “Don’t you have your club meeting tonight?”

“It’s not very important. It’s okay if I skip it.”

They stand two feet away from each other, but the distance takes up the length of an ocean, the width of a mountain. Letting Ventus become a figure in the horizon once more would probably desecrate them both.

Vanitas can’t let him come too close, but he can’t let him go. He’s pathetic.

“I know you don’t like hanging around the dorms on Thursday nights, so maybe I could come over to your apartment? We could watch a movie,” Ventus suggests, his fist curled against the fabric of his sweatshirt sleeve - the same one emblazoned with the school’s acronym over the chest that he bought the first week he came here. Mostly, Vanitas is amazed at how little the colors have faded over the years.

The day Ventus bought it, he sent a selfie of himself wearing it to Vanitas and made him promise to get a sweatshirt of his own once he got in. Even when Vanitas had no idea what street he could park on to sleep that night, even when he was nothing more than a high school dropout, he still said yes.

He has that same sweatshirt in black, hidden somewhere deep in his closet.

Vanitas should really tell him no. Ventus should go to his meeting, make nice with the other pre-vet students and attend their workshop on how to ask for a letter of recommendation or whatever it’ll be this week.

But Ventus finally, finally glances at him, with that _look_ , and Vanitas finds himself agreeing.

Ventus’s smile is so soft, and it burns so sweetly.

He comes over after the sun sets, arriving just minutes after Vanitas returns from taking Void and Gear on their nightly walk. They split a pint of chocolate ice cream and watch a movie together on the small tv Ventus bought him as an housewarming present when Vanitas first moved in.

The movie doesn’t matter as much as the distance between them as they sit. It feels carefully measured - too close is too intimate, but too far away would just make the both of them feel more alone than they already do.

When the movie ends, they quickly find another to watch, not quite ready for their time together to end. Ventus falls asleep halfway through, curled up within himself as Void sleeps on his shins. Vanitas watches the rest of the movie in relative silence, eyes darting over to Ventus every few minutes to see if he’ll wake up.

He doesn’t.

This isn’t an unfamiliar situation - once the sun goes down, Ventus can’t stay awake to save his life. Normally, Vanitas would toss a blanket at Ventus and kick him awake in the morning so he can force him to walk his dogs with him. Once the crisp morning air got Ventus’s brain working again, then he could figure out whether or not he had a class to get to.

( _But Vanitas already knows that Ventus has class tomorrow morning at ten. He memorized Ventus’s schedule before he memorized his own, didn’t he? Pathetic. A desperate idiot._ )

Tonight, once the credits roll, Vanitas leans over and shakes Ventus awake. He opens his eyes blearily, squinting up at Vanitas in confusion once he realizes where he is.

“It’s late. I’m taking you home,” Vanitas says, grabbing his keyring from its hook by the door.

That seems to get Ventus’s attention. He gently moves Void off him and gets to his feet, through he doesn’t move any closer to the filthy sneakers that wait for him. ”Wait, really? I thought I was gonna…” He swallows, and though Vanitas can’t hear the sound, he sees the way his throat bobs, “...Stay here tonight.”

Vanitas’s heart seizes in his chest. He wants Ventus to curl up in his bed and wake up to a body slotted against his and a smile directed at no one else but him. He wants sleepy fingers brushing his bangs away from his face and someone to make breakfast for. He wants to say yes, _so fucking badly_. From the way Ventus watches him, he wants that, too.

( _Ball and chain._ )

“You have class tomorrow. You can’t stay,” Vanitas says, each word scraping past his throat like sandpaper. He tears his gaze from Ventus, unable to look at the way his face falls any longer. It hurts too much to try. “Let’s go.”

The drive up to Ventus’s dorm is short, but the silence stretches on for miles. Ventus stares resolutely out the window, head turned away and expression hidden from Vanitas. What’s going through his mind right now? Is he angry? Upset?

Part of Vanitas wants to apologize, but his heart is in a vice grip and he can’t force anything out.

They pull into the turnaround directly in front of Ventus’s dorm. It looms over them, multiple floors of nothing but windows, wooden furniture, and stressed-out students. Ventus glances at Vanitas, then down at his hand, hovering over the gear shift as Vanitas debates throwing his car into park. He doesn’t expect to stay long, but if Ventus wants to talk, then Vanitas can at least give him that much.

He doesn’t. He rests a hand on top of Vanitas’s and squeezes gently, the brief contact enough to send a shiver running through Vanitas’s spine, exactly the way it used to. He’s not sure if Ventus notices. If he does, he doesn’t comment on it.

“See you soon?” Ventus asks, uncertain as he pulls his hand away.

Vanitas’s words die in his throat, but he nods, even when he knows he shouldn’t. Ventus is better off at arm’s length, kept away from where Vanitas can shatter him.

Ventus disappears through the glass doors of the dorm lobby.

LA doesn’t get cold the way that the town Vanitas grew up in did - and nothing at all like the freezing temperatures the desert nights would plummet down to during January - but a chill settles over him all the same.

 

* * *

 

iii.

Vanitas settles on the couch in Minnie’s sky-high office, kicking his flip-flops off his feet and resting his ankle on top of his knee. He leans on the closest armrest, chin propped up by his hand as Minnie settles into a chair that three of her could comfortably sit in.

Her office is nice. Located on the edge of Westwood where it stops being a village of tiny boutiques and minuscule chain restaurants and remembers how to be a city again, it offers a view of most of the West Side. When Vanitas can’t figure out what to say, he’ll look out the glass windows that stretch from the floor to the ceiling and watch the city lights below.

When they first started meeting, it was always under the night sky. Now the days are longer, and he stares out at the sunset. It’s calm. Peaceful, if tinged with the slightest bit of melancholy.

Reminds him a little of Xion.

Minnie is good at her job. Good enough to know that she has to prompt Vanitas into talking, rather than simply waiting for him to start. The questions they go through are quickly becoming routine, now that they’ve been meeting for the better part of two months.

She asks how school is (“Fine, I guess.”), how work is going (“I’m working on training a German Shepard for a dog show, nearly forgot how smart those dogs are.”), how his own dogs are (“Excellent, like always.”), and finally, she asks about his friendships. It’s what they’ve been working on recently - how Vanitas handles friendship. Talking about the old man, after that initial session where he let what she called _years of trauma_ drip down his chin and stain her carpet, is still too weird. Focusing on his friends is easier, leaving him less hollow once he steps out of her office.

Even if it’s smaller now, that void still lives in his mind. He still has to skirt around it. He’ll probably have to for a while longer.

Hands carefully posed in her lap, back relaxed against her chair, she looks at him with a kind smile and asks, “Have you met with any of your friends this week?”

Vanitas considers her question. He saw Kairi yesterday, but those meetings aren’t ones done by friends eager to see each other. She’s just a messenger who is too kind to refuse her job.

He hasn’t seen Xion since the concert, before he last saw Minnie, but they’ve texted. She wants to try a coffee shop with flower flavored lattes just off Venice Beach before she goes home for spring break. He’s still going to order a mocha, regardless of how popular their rose latte is. He doesn’t eat flowers.

He also spent his Saturday watching that hellhound and its six-year-old demon companion for twenty bucks, but that was a favor so the older sister could go work an extra shift at her job without worrying.

“Not yet,” Vanitas settles on.

“Okay,” she says. “Are you planning on seeing Ventus soon? You haven’t talked about him for the past few weeks.”

Guilt claws deep in the pit of his stomach. He - well, mostly the school’s health insurance he’s on - pays her way too much to _lie_ to her, even if its by omission. She’s here to help him, right? How can she do that if he doesn’t tell her the truth?

There are a lot of things he can skirt around, but this isn’t one of them. At least, not any longer.

“Ventus and I. We.” He clears his throat, tries again. “We’re not on speaking terms right now.”

Minnie gasps, worry shining in her eyes. “Oh no, Vanitas! I’m so sorry. What happened?”

Vanitas grits his teeth, bracing himself for the look that he knows is coming. The kind of look that’ll tell him just how disappointed she is in him. He’s never cared much about disappointing people before, but there’s something about her gentleness that makes him reluctant to make her upset. She’s like a flower blooming in the grass that’s too lovely to step on.

The kind of thing he ends up crushing beneath his feet anyways.

He scrapes his feelings out of his core like muck as he begins to speak. “It happened a couple months ago. I think a week or two after the funeral - I’m not sure exactly when, it’s all fuzzy now. Before my first appointment with you.”

“Oh, Vanitas…” she says, those sad eyes directed towards him. He shifts uncomfortably, the weight of it too much for him to take. “Why?”

“It was my fault. I got too attached and he’s always been too much of a selfless idiot to know when not to break himself for someone else’s sake.” Vanitas slaps his hands over his face, voice muffled by his palms. Whether the gesture is to hide from Minnie or from his own words, he couldn’t say. “He cared about me too much. He skipped classes if I asked him to hang out. He would stay up for hours just to text me back, even if he was exhausted. He’d get so worried about me he wouldn’t eat. He skipped a _midterm_ because I lost control one day. And he didn’t even tell me! I only found out after Aqua hunted me down to tell me to lay off.” Vanitas laughs, the sound like broken glass to his own ears. “And what was I doing? Counting the seconds until I could text him again and pushing him away whenever he did find me. I was obsessed.”

The next words worm their way out of his throat without his permission.

“I was ruining him.”

Minnie hums. He’s learned that she does that to assure him that she’s still listening without interrupting him. Once it’s clear that he’s done speaking, she starts to talk. “Vanitas, you had no one else in your life! You grew up in an incredibly abusive home and Ventus was the only person in your life to consistently reach out to you. Of course you would grow attached.”

Slowly, Vanitas lets his hands fall to his lap. She’s always so validating. Always saying his name like he matters. Doesn’t she realize how fucked up he is?

Vanitas shakes his head. “That doesn’t make it right. He’s so fucking good, Minnie. He’s kind and generous and determined and-” He takes a deep breath, opening and closing his hands into fists. He’s getting too worked up.

“You care about him a lot,” Minnie finishes for him. “I’m certain Ventus knows that.” But the story isn’t over yet, so she asks, “Do you miss him?”

Gritting his teeth, fists at his sides, Vanitas nods. “God, all the time. But I was suffocating him. It took three of his friends telling me that before I finally came to my senses. I told him we couldn’t see each other anymore and made him block every form of contact he had with me, so I couldn’t reach out to him when I got too desperate. I haven’t talked to him since then, but there’s this girl I know who tells me how he’s doing.”

“Xion?” She always remembers everyone he talks about by name. He doesn’t know how she does it.

“No, not Xion. Xion’s never met him.” She probably never will. “This girl is named Kairi. She was one of the people who called me out on my bullshit.”

Minnie nods, accepting the new information and probably filing Kairi’s name away for later. She’ll ask him if he would consider her a friend eventually. She isn’t - just a messenger, nothing more - but her steadfast belief in his ability to make new friends is nice. After he told her about the concert in last week’s session, she was so proud of him.

“It does make me sad to hear this, Vanitas,” Minnie says, her disappointment feeling like a knife in his chest the exact way he thought it would. “I’m happy to hear that you’re starting to make other friends, but you don’t deserve to be alone like that. We all need people to support us, and sometimes we care about others so much that it can hurt. That doesn’t make us weak. It makes us human.”

Vanitas bites his lip, trying to fight against the sudden pressure in his eyes. Minnie takes a box of tissues off her desk and sets it on the table closest to him.

“I’m also sad to hear that you felt like the only way to keep Ventus safe was by pushing him away, just as I’m sad to hear that you weren’t comfortable telling me this. I’m happy that you told me now, though. You may have had an unhealthy attachment to Ventus, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be close again. It’ll take work, but I think you’re already on that path. We all need a team of people to cheer us on, not just a partner, and you’re already assembling that team for yourself.”

Vanitas nods as he snatches a tissue out of the box and balls it into a wad inside his fist. He hasn’t cried in years, but just in case. “I guess you’re right,” he admits.

“Besides,” Minnie continues, “from what you’ve told me, it sounds like you and Ventus care about each other very deeply. A couple of months apart won’t change a bond that deep very easily. I think that’s beautiful.”

Vanitas lets the words bubbling in his voice come loose, even as he gets choked up from the threat of tears. “I want to see him again. So fucking badly.” Despite his best efforts, he sniffles. “Is that fucked up?”

With a smile too kind for him, Minnie shakes her head. “Not at all.”

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi hi hello just a general thank you for reading this note and for reading this far! big thank yous to everyone who has left a kudos and/or commented so far because reading your comments is so much fun and definitely makes my day <3 and of course, thank you thank you thank you to atla and nis, because this would not be here without them!!!! 
> 
> i'm trying to push out updates fairly quickly because my backlog is... so huge. as of this note i have like ~85k written, and the end still is not in sight. i'm not particularly amazed at the word count but at the fact that i'm even MORE excited and invested in this story than ever before! usually by the time i reach this far in i've either finished the story or i've started to completely detest it and am convinced that i have no idea how to write a complete sentence, let alone a decent story. the fact that i don't feel that way is amazing.
> 
> anyways. this chapter. is something. the last segment has some big 2010 vibes. to complete the experience, i'd recommend starting up this song and just letting it play when you reach the last segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psuRGfAaju4

ii.

Vanitas is _supposed_ to be studying on campus, having claimed a table inside the Bomb Shelter for himself. The mochas here _suck_ , but he didn’t feel like trekking all the way to the other side of campus when he has to come back here for lab in an hour.

Instead, Vanitas freezes in his seat as his ringtone goes off. He’s never minded it before, but hearing it now sends chills spiraling over his skin as it blares. There’s only two people who could possibly call him at this time of day, and he’s not sure which voice he wants to hear less.

Ventus has barely texted him this week, but he’d call if something was pressing. On the other hand, there’s…

Vanitas almost leaves his phone in his pocket, but he pulls it out to see Eraqus’s name on his screen. The last thing he wants to do is answer this call, but Eraqus won’t give up even if he ignores it.

Blood turned to ice in his veins, he accepts the call and lifts his phone to his ear. Eraqus’s voice, tired and lower than what he now knows the phone distorts it to, stabs ice picks into his mind.

It’s a miracle Vanitas finds his voice, choked as it may be. “What.”

“ _Vanitas? Is that you?_ ”

“You have my fucking number saved, don’t you?”

A sigh. More ice picks scraping across his brain, digging into his skin. “ _Vanitas_.”

“Just tell me why you’re calling already, Eraqus.” Vanitas can feel his energy sapping away. There aren’t enough iced mochas in the world to save him now. The sooner this is over, the better.

“ _Could we have one conversation that isn’t filled with animos-_ ”

Vanitas snarls into his phone, cutting Eraqus off with a vindictive pleasure. “I have class, asshole! We had a deal!” He ignores the confused stares directed at him from every single table around, curling into himself like a wounded animal. As if that could possibly help.

“ _I’ve set a date for the funeral,_ ” Eraqus says, finally getting to the fucking point like he could have right from the start. “ _A week from tomorrow. 11:30 A.M._ ”

“I have cla-”

“ _-Maybe I could have planned around that if you had ever been open to communicating with me. The date is already set,_ ” Eraqus snaps. Vanitas snarls wordlessly, but Eraqus pays him no mind. “ _You aren’t required to come. If you do come, you don’t need to give a eulogy. It’ll happen with or without you there._ ”

Good. Then there’s no need for Vanitas to waste his time.

“ _But_ ,” Eraqus continues, “ _I believe the closure will be good for you._ ”

A laugh erupts out of Vanitas, hysterically loud and uncomfortably sharp in his throat, daggers digging into the flesh. “Closure? Really? You think watching his corpse get dropped into the ground will give me _closure_?”

Sure, it’ll give closure. Closure to an infected wound, leaving it to fester and rot until it destroys Vanitas from the inside out.

“ _...I had him cremated,_ ” Eraqus says.

Vanitas laughs once more, iron in his mouth. He’s hollow inside. Who else would even go to the bastard’s funeral if Vanitas doesn’t? He’ll spit on the grave before he leaves, provided it won’t make the bastard haunt him for the rest of his life for disrespecting him one final time. “You know what, Eraqus? Sure! I’ll be there. Fuck my life, right? It doesn’t matter. Text me the address.”

He hangs up the call before Eraqus can respond, letting his phone drop to the table. He takes a deep breath.

Since coming to college, Vanitas has never missed a single class. Lectures and labs are nothing but his tuition money spread out, and he’s done the calculations. This quarter, a single missed session is ninety-seven dollars down the drain.

Five years ago, that would have been enough money to get him a motel for three nights. Alternatively, two nights in a real bed and enough food for a week for himself and his dogs, if he spent it smartly enough.

Vanitas goes through the motions. Laptop carefully shut and set back inside his backpack. Notebook beside it. Backpack looped around his shoulders, the straps pulled tight so it won’t bounce as he walks.

Coffee in one hand, phone in the other. He has lab in an hour, but his feet take him away from campus and towards his apartment.

He calls a number, puts his phone back to his ear. There aren’t ice picks anymore, and not even the residual guilt that should curl through his mind is enough to dissuade him from listening for the gentle, “ _Hello, Vanitas?_ ” that comes from his phone.

“So Eraqus set the funeral date,” he says. “Just got off the phone.”

“ _Oh man, really? Are you going?_ ”

“Yeah.”

“ _Tell me when. Or - you know what, no, it’s okay. I’ll ask Mister Eraqus. But I’m coming with you, okay?_ ”

Ventus is so good. Too good.

And Vanitas is weak.

“I’m heading back to my apartment. Can you be there in half an hour?”

“ _Of course. I’ll see you soon._ ”

Ventus holds true to his word, knocking at Vanitas’s door just minutes after he gets back himself. Vanitas opens his arms and Ventus rushes towards him, holding him tightly and kicking the door shut behind himself as an afterthought. The dogs are too smart to try to run out, but the gesture is nice. Ventus murmurs things into his collarbone that Vanitas doesn’t have the brainspace to figure out.

Vanitas shouldn’t have called him, should have known better, but it’s hard to say no when Ventus is so warm. They end up curled together on his couch, somehow, with Vanitas’s head resting in the crook of Ventus’s neck. Even in this fog, Ventus is real, and warm, and that warmth seeps into Vanitas when nothing else can.

Months later, when Vanitas finally talks about the day with Minnie, most of it will be lost to the void he’s still trying to evade. He won’t remember if Eraqus called to tell him the news, or if it was sent in a text. He won’t remember where he got the news, though he’ll think it was somewhere on campus. He won’t remember what he felt or how he reacted after.

What he will remember is the awkward email he sent to his professor the next day, explaining why he wouldn’t be able to make it to class. He’ll remember Ventus’s breath ghosting over the shell of his ear, even if he won’t remember the words.

He’ll remember the way he felt, like he was plunged into darkness after being bathed in light, when he found out that Ventus also skipped a class just to comfort him, and never once found that important enough to mention.

 

* * *

 

iii.

“You’re not skipping a final to be here, are you?” Vanitas asks, warily eyeing the girl in front of him. For final’s week, Kairi is surprisingly put together. Her hair is tied out of her face in a messy bun, eyeliner and mascara making her eyes more striking than Vanitas would think they’d be without. There’s even a coat of rosy eyeshadow swiped over her eyelids, glittering in the afternoon sunlight. She takes a sip of an iced mocha just as extreme as the sugary concoction that Vanitas ordered from the closest cafe. Even if it tastes like shit, he has a final tomorrow morning and needs all the caffeine and sugar he can get to make it through until the end.

“Nope! Just finished, actually. Feels good to be free,” Kairi says, beaming proudly. Her smile is easy, but the more he looks, the more obvious the bags under her eyes become. “Are you?” she teases.

“I have my last final tomorrow,” Vanitas says.

Kairi frowns. “We could have met after that! My mom’s not picking me up until tomorrow night.”

“You don’t have to stay over break? I thought student athletes never stopped practicing.”

“Nope! When I said I was free, I meant it.” Her eyes narrow, though not maliciously. If anything, she looks calculating, figuring something out that Vanitas can’t quite tell yet. Her brightness doesn’t burn the way he knows it could, but it sneaks its way even into the darkest corners, illuminating anything and everything she wants it to. “...You’re trying to avoid the subject.”

“What are you talking about?”

Kairi levels an accusatory finger at him, though again, it doesn’t feel malicious or cruel. She glances down at her straw and twists until it’s pointing at him as well. “I’m figuring out your tricks, Vanitas. You avoid the subject whenever people mention stuff you don’t want to talk about. It would have been fine to meet after your final so you can study more!”

“First off, you’re a freshman. You barely know what a final is.” Kairi pouts, but Vanitas cuts her off before she can interrupt him. “Second, I know what I’m doing. It’s fine. Third, stop pointing your straw at me. ”

Pout morphing to a glare, Kairi grabs her straw and jabs it at him. “I do too know what a final is! Don’t act like you’re better than me! This is your first year here, too.”

“Yeah, but unlike you, I spent two years at community college before this. Also, I’m not seven.”

“I’m nineteen!” Kairi’s cheeks puff out in anger, but all it does is make her look like a chipmunk. Vanitas snickers. After a few moments, Kairi exhales, leaving her giggling. “You’re even harsher than Riku was as a teenager.”

Vanitas has no idea who this _Riku_ person is, so he lets the comment slide. He gives himself a moment to rue the fact that everyone he talks to these days is nineteen. “Anyways, didn’t we have something to talk about?” he asks, knowing that he’s changing the subject again. This time, Kairi lets it slide.

Kairi straightens her shoulders and cracks her neck, grinning at how it makes Vanitas grimace. Maybe Kairi isn’t an opal found in tide pools. Maybe she’s a deep sea creature that washed up on shore and glows an unnatural color. This girl is a freak of nature, seriously. “We do. Soooo… what are your plans for spring break? Doing anything fun?”

This is how they’re meant to interact. Kairi’s the lone gap in the walls set up between Vanitas and Ventus; a pane of glass that distorts their appearances but at least lets them know that the other still lives. It’s stupid, a request born out of desperation and agreed to thanks to foolishness on all sides, but one that Vanitas clings to.

He likes knowing that Ventus is okay, because he’s selfish and pathetic. Ventus, with his bleeding heart, likes knowing the same. And Kairi’s the only person stupidly generous enough to break those stones apart and replace it with herself.

They frame it like a normal conversation. It’s anything but.

“I’m staying here. Have clients to deal with. Besides, the brat next door has the week off too, so someone has to watch her to keep her from burning the complex down.”

Kairi claps in delight, her laughter ringing in the air. Right now, she’s the sea-foam bubbles on top of the waves, collecting in tide pools and shining in the morning light. Pretty, in that way girls are. “You’re babysitting!? I’d never believe it! Imagine what Ven will say!”

Vanitas fights brazenly against the heat that flares over his face, but he loses. He settles for glaring down at his mocha and taking an intentionally long, intentionally loud, sip. His straw rattles against the ice and he hopes it sounds as annoying as he thinks it does. “Shut up,” he mutters.

“Don’t tell me you’re doing it for free. There’s no way,” she keeps grinning and if this table wasn’t made out of solid metal he would have flipped it and left her by now.

“For your information, _Kairi_ , I’m getting a hundred bucks for the week.” She doesn’t need to know that he could make the same amount during a two-hour training session with a client. Or that most of that money is so he can go grocery shopping for the kid to make sure she doesn’t eat gummy worms for three meals a day.

Kairi will never know. He’ll take that information to his grave.

...He tries not to think too hard about graves.

“Okay, I guess that’s not too bad. Are you doing anything else? Do you know anyone else who’s staying?”

“One person.” The same person Xion is hellbent on him meeting - her girlfriend. At least, he’s pretty sure they’re official at this point. Xion hasn’t used that title yet, but three dates is enough to warrant it, in his opinion.

“That’s good! A lot of people go home for break. Especially us in the dorms, because all the dining halls close,” she says, echoing the same thing Ventus has said for the past five years.

“I’ve heard.”

“Winter break was rough. Thankfully, my coach was able to help provide meals,” she says, scratching her nail - painted a bright pink and glossy in the light, though the polish is chipped off at the edges - against some piece of dirt on her backpack. “Still, I hope you have a good break.”

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t need to prompt her the way he used to; she knows well enough that he’s done talking, and that it’s time to hold up the other half of the deal. She can’t only receive letters; she has to deliver them as well.

“Ven is good, by the way. He’s going home… today, I think? All of his finals were Monday and Tuesday. Oh, and one on Sunday! Can you believe that?” Kairi says, frowning. These North Campus majors and their _social sciences_. They don’t understand real pain.

Vanitas rolls his eyes. “Just about every single Chemistry final is on a Sunday. I’m used to it.

“When do you find time to study?”

“Saturday. It’s even greater when you have your last midterm the week before.”

Kairi takes a long sip of her drink, shaking her head the entire time. “So glad I picked sociology. But anyways! Back to Ven. Um, he’s good. He misses you,” she adds, which she says every single time.

“Yeah, yeah,” Vanitas says, and then more quietly, “I miss him too.”

“Then why do you keep doing this? Can’t you just talk to each other like normal people already? Or I guess… once he comes back,” she says, deep in thought. She stirs her drink with her straw, focusing on something off in the distance that Vanitas doesn’t bother to look at. “That gives you another week and a half of being dumb idiots. Isn’t that enough?”

“You don’t get it,” he bites out, pushing away the voice in his mind that sounds suspiciously like Minnie, repeating Kairi’s words in gentler synonyms. “There wasn’t any other way.”

Kairi rolls her eyes. “You’re always so dramatic! Jeez.” She takes another sip of her drink, making her straw clatter against the ice and slurp loudly. Vanitas glares at her. He knows when he’s being mocked. “See? That’s exactly what you did five minutes ago. And you call _me_ the kid.”

Oh no. Not after what Vanitas has been through. He has his own moments of immaturity, sure, but she has _no fucking right_ -

Eyes wide, Kairi sets her drink down. “Okay, okay, calm down! You’re getting kinda intense.”

Vanitas forces himself to take a deep breath, even as it stutters painfully in his lungs. He flexes his hands around his drink, nearly causing the liquid inside to spill out onto the table. He closes his eyes and counts to ten in his mind. “...I’m good.”

“Too far?” Kairi asks quietly.

“You have no right to call me a kid. Not after what I’ve been through.”

She doesn’t know the entire story, but she knows enough to feel guilty. “...Yeah. Still, it’s been almost two months. Didn’t you stop talking to Ven because you felt like you were too clingy? But you have friends now - and don’t give me that look Vanitas, I know you do! I’ve seen you opening Snapchats when you think I’m not looking. Your world is bigger than just him.”

She isn’t wrong. He has Xion. Maybe he’s starting to have her friends as well, those bonds transferred by heart-pounding concerts, moments spent in a massive movie theater that Xion dragged him along to, and a shared taste in the same bands. And by the end of next week, maybe he’ll meet her girlfriend and maybe she’ll be tolerable, too.

There are days - not many, but they’ve existed - where he hasn’t even _thought_ of Ventus, too wrapped up in teaching dogs to sit and arguing with Roxas over the best punk bands of all time and getting kicked out of increasingly esoteric coffee shops with Xion to notice the ocean waves he’s stopped straining to hear.

( _He hasn’t been to the beach all quarter, now that he thinks about it. He misses the sand, the shoreline, the cool water wrapping his ankles in a gentle embrace, the sun kissing the back of his neck._ )

But is it enough?

Vanitas takes a moment to dig into himself and figure out what it is that leaves his heart leaping into his throat.

That ball and chain is still there. He kept it from locking around Ventus and dragging him into hellish oblivion, but it still lingers. It isn’t as big, not quite as heavy as it was before, but still it remains.

She thinks she can sum up everything he did to Ventus with a single word: _clingy_. She really doesn’t get the gravity of what happened. She’s the pane of glass separating them in two. She doesn’t know what the completed picture used to look like, or how twisted it had become.

Vanitas shakes his head, words stuck in his throat. Unlike Xion, Kairi doesn’t know when to stop pushing. She huffs and folds her arms over her chest, petulant like a little kid who had their candy taken away. “You know I’m right, Vanitas.” She lets her arms drop as her voice grows soft. “You and me could be friends too, if you let me.”

She’s just a messenger.

“If I could deal with Riku at fifteen, I can deal with you. _Easy_.” Kairi nods to herself, completely assured of her own words. She barely knows Vanitas; who does she think she is to assume that she can handle his brand of bullshit? “What do you say, Vanitas? Friends?”

She sticks her hand out and the look in her eyes is so earnest. Vanitas chokes on a strangled laugh. This keeps happening, doesn’t it?

Something shines in her face, something eager and earnest and the smallest bit scared. She isn’t afraid of him. She’s never been.

What she’s afraid of is him saying no, he realizes. That thought hits him like a bulldozer, knocking the wind out of his lungs. He stares blankly at her hand. Down to his drink, then hers, then up to her face. Her eyes are bright and her smile is kind.

There’s a part of him that wants to hope that maybe he isn’t so bad. That maybe whatever she - and Xion, and Roxas, and maybe even Naminé, one day - sees in him is true. Is good.

Maybe they _could_ be friends.

That’s the part that takes her outstretched hand, wrong as it may feel.

“Friends,” Kairi confirms, and in that moment he can tell that she draws her strength from someone else as well. Someone - maybe _someones_ \- who mean the world to her.

He doesn’t say it back, but he shakes her hand anyways.

 

* * *

 

i.

The dance sneaks up on them. Vanitas is forced to go solely because Ventus needs someone to take his extra ticket and his mom refuses to let him waste the thirty dollars those two tickets cost.

Vanitas doesn’t ask for Xehanort’s permission until he’s already dressed, clad in a black button-down shirt a size too big for him, the lone pair of black slacks he owns, and his usual pair of beat up Converse on his feet. He’s even tried to tame his hair, shaping his messy spikes into something a little less wild than normal.

Xehanort’s been spending less time haunting the bungalow and more time in his room lately. The door to his room is left wide open, letting the whole place be filled with the dry narration from whatever stupid war documentary he’s decided to fall asleep to today.

Except when Vanitas lingers in his doorway, Xehanort isn’t asleep at all. “What is it, boy?” he asks, pausing briefly to examine Vanitas’s clothing. “Why are you dressed like that?”

“There’s a dance tonight and my friend wants me to go,” he mutters from between clenched teeth. “Can I?”

“And what friend is this?” Xehanort demands, his creaking voice louder than the tv’s dull commentary. Vanitas looks down at his shoes, ragged and falling apart. He needs new ones, but he knows to ration his requests. They’ll easily survive another two weeks.

He debates about lying. He could throw out the name of a random classmate and Xehanort would probably be none the wiser. Though if Xehanort _did_ find out, Vanitas doesn’t even want to know what that punishment would look like.

“My friend Ventus.”

Xehanort’s eyebrows shoot up at the name. “Eraqus’s student, eh? The one whose arm you broke?”

He reminds himself to be careful about which words to choose. One missed step, one inflection that’s slightly angrier than complete obedience, and he’ll never hear the end of it. And getting to go to this stupid dance just to make Ventus happy? That would quickly become a pipe dream. “We’ve become classmates since then. He’s okay with me now. I’m sorry for not telling you earlier.”

Xehanort grows silent, every beat of which chills Vanitas to the bone. He knows how to deal with the talking - by pretending to listen and nodding at the appropriate times. He doesn’t know how to deal with silence.

 _Stay deferential,_ Vanitas reminds himself. _It’s easier to obey than it is to push back._ Fewer consequences that way. He’s tried fighting back, back when he was twelve and idiotic, but he’s smarter now. A fight with Xehanort is one he’ll never win.

“And when is this dance?”

“Tonight. Ventus’s mom agreed to come pick me up.”

Even in that desert hell, Vanitas never asked to go spend time with friends. He didn’t ask to go to any school events for the short time that he was a student there. If Xehanort told him to go amuse himself, then he did. The kids on his street didn’t like him, and neither did any of his classmates.

Ventus was the only one who ever has, with the gap between his teeth and the kindness he offered when there was no one around to stop him.

This dance is stupid, like all dances, and even if he’s a backup option behind the pretty girl Ventus wanted to go with, Vanitas still chooses to go. It’s better than staying here, trapped in an endless loop of what-ifs. When high school comes for them, Vanitas will be back to watching from the sidelines as Ventus laughs at his nice lunch table with his pretty friends. He’ll take what he can get while it lasts.

“Can I please go?” Vanitas asks, careful to keep his voice measured. He knows what’ll happen if he whines.

“You dare use that tone of voice against me, boy?” Xehanort snaps. Vanitas recoils automatically, fear solidifying deep in his gut as he realizes just how he’s messed up. He’ll spend the rest of the night on his knees scrubbing the bathroom with a torn up rag and bleach at this point.

Vanitas bows his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,” he says.

Xehanort falls into silence once more. Vanitas dares to glance back up at him, wondering if Xehanort simply decided to ignore him and return to his stupid documentary.

Finally, he gives his judgement. “The boy’s mother will need to bring you back home, but you may go.” Now, he turns his attention back to his tv. “Have I made myself clear?”

Vanitas bows as deeply as he can, glee tearing through him as he does. He can’t fight the grin off his face, but at least from this angle he can hide it. “Thank you,” he says, careful to wait for the tell-tale shift of Xehanort going back to ignoring him before leaving. He retreats back to his room, careful to shut the door as quietly as possible. He snatches a pillow off his bed and shouts into it, intensely grateful for the way it muffles his voice. Energy floods his body; he could sprint down the street and still not feel tired.

Instead, pillow clutched against his chest, he sinks down onto his bed. There are times like now when Xehanort isn’t so bad. He still has a few mottled bruises running down his ribcage from a particularly brutal lesson last week, but that was his own fault for failing to perform his techniques correctly the first time. Xehanort may be strict, and he may talk and talk _and talk_ without any regard for Vanitas, and he may say things that leave Vanitas feeling like garbage sometimes, but it could be much worse.

Once his heart stops trying to beat its way out of his chest, Vanitas gets to his feet and dumps all the spare change he has into his pocket. It isn’t much, but it should be enough to get himself and Ventus each a soda, if they sell sodas there. Which they probably do.

Vanitas quickly realizes that he has zero idea of what this dance will be like. Will Ventus make him dance? He hates dancing. He’s much more prepared to let Ventus drown his sorrows into a Sprite as he tries not to think about who he could be with instead of Vanitas.

A flash of bright lights across his window prevents Vanitas from dwelling too long on that thought. He takes a deep breath, leaves his room, makes sure to thank Xehanort one last time, and rushes to the front door.

He flings it open to see Ventus standing on the other side of the - still closed - screen door, his fist half-raised in an aborted attempt at knocking. The sun has already set, but the small light above the porch is more than enough to illuminate Ventus’s sheepish smile, still set in those green brackets.

Vanitas opens the screen door, but doesn’t bother to step outside just yet, completely baffled by Ventus’s getup. A vivid green bowtie, tied way too neatly for Ventus to have done it himself, is nestled against the collar of a white checkered button-down. Said button-down is tucked into a pair of khaki pants, kept in place by a leather belt that would look more appropriate on a middle-aged man than a teenager. He crosses his feet, clad in shiny brown loafers, one resting over the other. Vanitas has officially spent more of his life knowing Ventus than he hasn’t, and not once has he ever seen Ventus look nerdier than he does now.

Vanitas can’t stop staring.

“Um, Vanitas? Hey?” Ventus asks, waving a hand in front of his face. “Are you still there?”

Vanitas blinks, intensely aware of the heat flooding his face. “Hey,” he says, overcoming his very sudden and very intense urge to punch a wall.

“I didn’t know you knew how to dress up!” Ventus says with a laugh. “Look, your shirt even almost fits you. I’m proud.”

If Vanitas’s face could get any hotter, he’s pretty sure he would just have to spontaneously combust. “At least I’m not dressed like my dad,” he shoots back. He can do insults. Those are easy.

Ventus’s indignant pout only makes it easier. “You’ve never even seen my dad!”

“Don’t need to see him to know you’re dressed like him.”

Ventus groans, and the sound of it is so familiar that Vanitas’s racing heart can finally settle down. Slowly, the heat fades from his cheeks, replaced by a grin that feels much more fitting than embarrassment does.

“Let’s just go already,” Ventus says, turning on the heel of his loafers and fully expecting Vanitas to trail after him. He’s right of course, even if Vanitas takes a few extra seconds to make sure both doors close behind him.

Vanitas slides into the backseat as Ventus takes over the passenger seat. Ventus’s mother, who has never been more than a lilting voice out of a window before now, greets him. Her smile holds a kindness similar to Ventus’s. If he’s the sunshine on a clear afternoon, then she’s the warmth filtering through a slight cloud cover. Not as intense, but warm all the same.

“Nice to meet you too, ma’am,” Vanitas grumbles to his hands.

She laughs. “ _Mi amore_ , I thought you said he was rude!”

“He is! He just knows better than to be rude in front of adults,” Ventus says with a huff, crossing his arms over his chest. After a moment, he leans towards his mom, whispering like he’s letting her in on a massive conspiracy. “He said I look like _Dad_.”

His mother reaches over to him and pinches his cheek, judging by the distorted wail he lets out as she touches him. “You do look very handsome, Ven. Just like your father.”

Vanitas cackles. That only makes Ventus protest even more loudly than before, which in turn prompts Vanitas to laugh even harder.

The rest of the ride to school is strange. Ventus’s mother is nothing like Xehanort. She’s more than another hand waiting for her child to get off the bus. She’s the type of parent who would welcome her child back home from a cold day with an endless supply of blankets and a mug of hot chocolate pressed into their freezing hands.

Vanitas loves hot chocolate, even if he’s only ever had the tiny packets he dumped into a microwaved cup of water. He wonders if Ventus has ever had the real stuff, made from real chocolate and milk, not water and sugary powder.

Ventus’s mother kisses his cheek when he moves to get out of the car. He scrubs at his cheek, but the sullen, “I love you too,” that he mutters is unmistakable. As Vanitas gets out of the car himself, he forces himself not to dwell on whatever it is that whips at him like a winter desert wind.

Ventus bumps his shoulder into Vanitas’s as they walk up to the gym, following the pathway lined by yellow and black balloons. Electricity races down his spine. “Hey, I was the one who got rejected. Shouldn’t you be trying to cheer me up instead of the other way around?” he asks.

Those two sentences are enough to stomp out any electricity and any bit of heat, replacing it with an even sharper gust of those desert winds. It hurts just as much as kind that cuts down to his bone and leaves his skin red and angry. He wouldn’t be here if Merida had said yes. That’s right.

A cardboard cutout of a cartoon lion stands by the door, its speech bubble filled with rules about the dance. Some angsty pop song fills the area, muted just enough to obscure who sings it from behind the pair of tan doors that separate the check-in area from the pandemonium of two-hundred teenagers attempting to throw themselves at each other without the chaperones noticing.

A pair of chaperones smile up at Ventus as he digs out their tickets. They let them inside easily, wishing them to _have fun_ and _be safe_ and all those things normal parents tell kids.

Some days it isn’t so bad. Tonight, every word feels like another sting against his skin, reminding him of how different he is.

There are some tables off to the side of the gym, conveniently located directly next to the concession stand. Vanitas makes a beeline for the first one he sees, pulling out his best glare to scare off the sixth-graders that currently occupy the table. It works like a charm and he sinks down into one of the freshly unoccupied seats with a frown. Ventus slides into the seat next to him.

From here, he can see the entire gym. Throngs of students jump and move on the dance floor to some OneRepublic song he doesn’t know the name of as at least a dozen parent chaperones haunt the gaps between them. Intense blacklights cast the room in a purple glow, though they fade away under the colorful spotlights that rotate throughout the floor.

Ventus’s shirt glows purple, which is stupid enough to bring a grin to Vanitas’s face.

“Are we just going to sit here all night?” Ventus asks.

“Yes.”

“You don’t even want to dance to one song? Come on. I know you like Fireflies.”

“I do not like that song!”

Ventus shoves him, nearly knocking him out of his seat. “Yeah, right! You hum it during lunch when you think I can’t hear you!”

“I’m already doing you a favor by taking your extra ticket, Ventus! Don’t make me embarrass myself by dancing for your entertainment,” Vanitas snaps. Ventus looks ready to protest, but Vanitas gets up to his feet before he can. “I’m getting a soda. Do you want a Sprite.”

Ventus folds his arms over his chest, frustrated but resigned. “Yeah. I do.”

Vanitas has just enough money to get two sodas - a Coke for himself and a Sprite for Ventus - and a Snickers bar. He comes back to their table and kicks his feet up into one of the spare chairs right as a nervous looking sixth-grader floats towards their table, effectively scaring him off.

He fully expects Ventus to scold him for being a jerk, but he stares off towards the dance floor with an expression that Vanitas can’t decipher. Squinting, he follows Ventus’s line of sight until he spots a head of bright red hair.

Merida stands within a group of girls, all laughing as they jump around like idiots to the beat of the song filtering through the speakers besides them. Merida picks up the girl next to her and twirls her around like she weighs nothing, still laughing the entire time.

Vanitas still doesn’t quite get it, girls being pretty the way that girls are, but he can respect that. She’s strong - strong enough to lift her friends like they’re paper and strong enough to know exactly what she wants.

He feels his hate slip away, sand falling between his fingers. Ventus’s bitter sigh leaves him feeling oddly clean, some nasty, gleeful thing deep inside him crowing about how Ventus is a better fit at his side, not her’s.

A slower song starts up, and the students on the dance floor rush to pair up with each other. Merida and a few of her friends float away to the sides of the gym, content to talk as the wanna-be couples try to dance together without an angry chaperone forcing them apart to leave room for the lord or whatever it is.

Vanitas glances at Ventus, at the way he’s resigned himself to staring down at his soda now, and wonders what it would be like if they tried to dance. Neither of them would be any good at it. Vanitas would probably make stepping on each other’s toes into a contest that he’d be determined to win.

But wouldn’t Ventus also put his hands on Vanitas’s shoulders? Or maybe even his waist - Ventus has shot up half an inch recently and besides, there’s no guidebook for where your hands are supposed to go when you’re both boys. A shiver runs up his spine. Spiders don’t crawl over his skin, but heat, warmth, electricity - it all blooms within him like desert wildflowers unfurling to greet the sun after a heavy rain.

If Ventus asked him to, he would get up. He would let himself be led into the gentle sways every couple on the floor mirrors.

A girl approaches their table, just as nervous as everyone else that’s tried to sit with them. She floats by Ventus’s chair, a solid two feet away from the lone chair that isn’t currently occupied by Vanitas’s feet. She’s either oblivious of his glare, or pointedly ignoring it. Her eyes stay solely on Ventus.

“Um… Ven?” Her voice is soft and sweet, almost musical in the way it naturally lilts. Vanitas has no clue what her name is. “Would you dance with me?”

Recognition sparks over Ventus’s face. Spluttering, face red, he gets to his feet and nods. She beams at him and falls by his side as they settle into their own spot on the dance floor. Her hands rest on his shoulders; his clasp her waist.

Together, they sway to the gentle crooning of the song.

Vanitas spends the next three minutes trying, but mostly failing, to find a reason not to walk the two-and-a-half miles home. By the time the song ends, Vanitas’s soda is empty and its can is crushed beyond recognition, his Snickers bar only exists as bits of caramel stuck between his teeth and blue wrapping paper is torn to shreds scattered across the table, and he’s on his feet headed to the exit.

The opening bars of _Fireflies_ begins, filling the spaces between the other kids with the airy electronic beat. Vanitas pointedly ignores the way his pulse changes to match the music as he reaches the door.

Only for a beam of sunlight to stop him, grinning at him like there’s no one left in the world but the two of them. Vanitas can’t look at him for longer than a second, breaking eye contact only to see the nameless girl return to a group of friends who welcome her with titters and giggles.

“It’s your favorite! Come on, I know you want to dance!”

“It’s not my favorite,” Vanitas protests, skin prickling with electricity as Ventus takes his hand and leads him back into the chaos. Shocks swirl just under his skin, up and down again and again.

They jump around more than they dance, never close, never touching, looking like the biggest pair of idiots in the entire gym, but Vanitas feels lighter than he ever has before. The rest of the night is lost in a blur of pumping bass and low voices and laughter. Ventus buys them each a second soda and they race to see who can chug theirs the fastest.

Ventus wins, and Vanitas will insist for years after that he let the other boy win on purpose.

That night, Vanitas goes to sleep with an exhausted body but a lightness in his heart that makes sleep come easier than it ever has before. Not even Xehanort’s war movies, gunshots and screams ricocheting off the thin walls of the bungalow, can disturb him tonight.

He dreams of gentle sunlight on his back and the ocean just within his reach, and wakes up wondering if the sand on the beach really does feel different than the sand of the desert.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a few things!
> 
> -there's talk of dissecting an eye in the first segment of this chapter (thanks, high school anatomy class!) and while the actual dissection doesn't really happen outside of a few bits of flavor text, it might make some people really uncomfortable! if that's the case for you, then when they go to get their supplies, skip down to the part that begins with: "Still, Vanitas is grateful when they fall into a silence that feels close to amicable."
> 
> -ok so if you follow me on twitter you have most definitely seen me be SUPER excited over the fact that i just got my first tattoo a few days ago! the fact that this irl event happens to coincide with me posting the chapter where vanitas also gets a tattoo is purely coincidental, i swear to god. the reason why i wanted to write about vanitas getting one in the first place is because i wanted ven to give him a christmas gift that was really thoughtful and personalized, and everything else fell into place in a sense of timing that makes me want to shake my fist at the heavens and mutter.
> 
> -i played my betas and now they're both incredibly invested in this story and in vanitas getting a good payoff in the end. all three of us are wrecked. good times r coming, friends

i.

There are a pair of eyes that follow Vanitas in his anatomy class that he never expected to see again. Initially, all they do is watch him, lingering on the edges of the room. Always the first to arrive and the last to leave.

It takes three weeks and the announcement of a partner project for those eyes to leave the shadows and block his field of vision. Every stool in a science classroom is taller than it should be, but Terra is so much taller, leaving him looming over Vanitas in a way that Terra’s awkward smile does nothing to lessen.

“I’m surprised your parents let you back into public school,” Vanitas drawls, leaning back on his lab table. “And only after, what, three years? Four? Good job, Terra.”

He wasn’t here last year. Aqua spent all of her tenth grade with a gap at her side, one that her other friends tried - and failed, again and again - to fill. Ventus spent that entire year too preoccupied with trying to cheer Aqua up to give Vanitas the time of day outside of the lone class they shared.

Another year, another series of months spent watching from the sidelines. At least now the picture he’ll be forced to look at will be complete once more.

It’d be easier if Vanitas had a phone, so then he could at least _text_ Ventus when they weren’t at school. Xehanort doesn’t understand any technology more advanced than his cable box’s ability to record tv shows he falls asleep halfway through watching, and as long as he has a landline he’ll be able to complain to Eraqus about whatever it is they talk about. Since he doesn’t need anything else, why should Vanitas?

Vanitas is, like he normally is, second best. Maybe third best, now that Terra’s back. Vanitas thinks of the conversation that’ll definitely be waiting for him when he goes to math, and how Ventus will definitely spend the five minutes they get before their teacher hobbles to the front and makes them copy down equations talking about his current crush.

So really, fourth best. Far behind _Zack_ , of all people.

“You’re really not a nice person, Vanitas,” Terra says, sighing. “Do I even need to ask if you have a partner yet?”

Vanitas regards him skeptically. He doesn’t dignify Terra with a straight answer, not when it’s already obvious. “Why does it matter to you?”

Terra looks away, guilt dampening every part of him. His shoulders slump forward, making him smaller than before. He’s less of a brick wall now; he’s more human. More broken. “We’ll need scalpels to cut open the sheep eye, and no one else would trust me enough to handle one. Not after… what happened.”

This town is just small enough that everyone knows what Terra did, even if they didn’t go to his middle school. Robberies done by a bunch of punk kids is news that spreads fast and lingers for long. Even Vanitas, as disconnected from the social sphere as he is, still hears the rumors swirling around. The other kids may see Vanitas as a weird angry jerk, but no one thinks he’s going to pull a knife on them.

Though between himself and Terra, Vanitas is definitely more likely to pull a knife on someone.

“We’re going to be stuck together anyways, so we might as well,” Vanitas says, shoving his backpack off the unoccupied seat next to him. With a grateful smile, Terra slips onto the stool. Even sitting, he towers over Vanitas. Terra is a built guy, and if Vanitas is willing to take his pride out back and shoot it in the head, he can fully sympathize with every single person who has let their gaze linger on him. God, _why_ does he think it’s such a good idea to wear tight t-shirts?

His torso has no right being that long or that sculpted.

With everyone paired off, the teacher gives instructions on what to do next. Terra, always the dutiful one, goes to retrieve the sheep eyeball and supplies. The teacher clearly hesitates as she hands Terra the metal tray full of sharp objects, but she doesn’t say anything as he returns to Vanitas’s table.

The assignment is easy enough. Cut open the thing, poke at some different parts, and fill out a worksheet about what they find. Vanitas finishes pulling on his gloves when he notices Terra giving him a weird look out of the side of his eye. “What?”

“Do you think you can do the cutting? I can fill out the worksheet.”

“What, too chicken to get some eye juice on your hand?”

Terra’s face turns stony. Every part of him is a rock wall. “My hands will shake too much if I try,” he explains. “I used to help my dad out with dinner. I’d cut vegetables for him. I’m… not very helpful anymore.”

Anymore.

Vanitas snatches the scalpel in his hand and starts the dissection. There’s not much to do for the actual assignment, which gives Terra plenty of opportunity to keep talking. Vanitas doesn’t bother looking at him, too busy focusing on trying to find the optic nerve without slicing it in two, but he’s forced to listen.

“I wanted to thank you,” Terra says, pencil tapping against his paper in a steady beat. Rhythmic, slow, calm.

“For what?” Vanitas asks, disbelief dripping off every syllable. They’ve had _maybe_ three conversations in total since the day Vanitas broke Ventus’s arm. Most of his communication came in the form of harsh glares and a protective hand attaching itself to Ventus’s shoulder as Vanitas watched on from a distance.

Aqua still doesn’t like him so much as she’ll tolerate him on the occasions when she’s forced to remember he exists, but it’s only in that moment does Vanitas realize that any sense of animosity he once felt from Terra is gone. Maybe it isn’t friendly, and maybe it’s still a far cry from the way Ventus treats him when _he_ remembers Vanitas exists, but it’s not negative.

“When I first went to… well, you know,” Terra says. Yeah, he does know - when Terra landed in juvie. “Aqua didn’t talk to me. My parents would always bring letters from Ven and Mister Eraqus when they visited, but never her. Then one day, it changed.”

“What does this have to do with me?” Vanitas asks.

“Ven told me that you talked to Aqua and helped her understand what happened. She’s always believed in me, even when I didn’t deserve it, but she was scared that her truth and the real truth were different. It changed because of you, Vanitas,” Terra’s smile may not show on his face, but the warmth in his voice shines through. Aqua, and her steadfast belief in him, means the world to him.

“If she had turned her back on me, then I would have never made it back here. Not without her.” His voice is thick with emotion, and there’s no other way to describe it but love. Powerful, solid, the foundation that Terra builds himself on.

Vanitas has never heard someone talk the way Terra does about Aqua before, at least not in person. It feels alien to him, so different from the usual derision and sarcasm Vanitas cloaks himself in during his every interaction. Xehanort’s never spoken that way before, either.

Could Vanitas sound the way Terra does one day, too? It feels too powerful, too unfamiliar for him to ever make his own. He doesn’t love anything that strongly. And if someone were to talk about him that way, he doesn’t think he’d be able to handle it. It’s too much, too strange of a strength for him to understand. Vanitas understands power, but this is different.

But it’s not like Vanitas is going to let _Terra_ know about any of this. “I really didn’t do anything, besides take two seconds to get into your stupid head.”

“Hey!”

“You’re the idiot who was conned into robbing a pharmacy, not me. Now shut up and describe this iris,” Vanitas says, pushing said body part closer to Terra.

Vanitas knows he probably crossed a line, but he doesn’t care. Terra won’t get mad enough to abandon their assignment before it’s completed, though he might mad enough to avoid Vanitas for the rest of high school. It wouldn’t be the first time it happened and it won’t be the last.

Except Terra doesn’t do that. He huffs out a laugh. “I thought hearing that would make me angry. I didn’t think it’d be refreshing. No one else will talk about it.”

Vanitas shoots him a look that he hopes conveys just how stupid he thinks Terra is. “Of course your friends won’t want to talk about it. They want to move on and act like nothing ever changed. Caring about someone else is easier when you don’t have to think about the potential they have to destroy others.”

“Vanitas, that was…” Terra blinks a couple times; Vanitas can practically see the rusty cogs in his mind trying to follow along. The concept isn’t even that complicated, come _on_. “...Wise of you.”

“I’m good at reading people. Unlike you. Did you draw that iris yet?”

Terra pushes the paper towards Vanitas, revealing a fairly accurate depiction of the thing on the dissection plate. For all his blabbering, Terra is surprisingly good at doing the work he needs to do.

Still, Vanitas is grateful when they fall into a silence that feels close to amicable. He doesn’t get to share many of these with other people. He could grow to like it, maybe.

They finish the assignment with a few minutes left to spare. Terra turns in their shared worksheet as Vanitas cleans off their supplies. Vanitas returns to their table after Terra, dull surprise registering within him at the realization that Terra waited for him to come back.

No one ever waits for him besides Ventus. It’s weird.

“Hey, Vanitas?”

“What.”

“Do you want to come eat lunch with me, Ven, and Aqua? I know you probably have your own place to go to,” he pauses long enough for Vanitas to snort, because as stupid as Terra may be, he isn’t stupid enough to assume Vanitas actually has a group of people to eat with, “But the planter we sit on is big. You could fit.”

“Is this a ploy to get Aqua to kill me?”

Terra laughs. “She’s not that angry at you.”

“But she’s angry at me.”

“The last time you talked to her, you said that her ego was so big that it could crush an elephant. Besides, she holds grudges.”

“Yeah, I _know_.”

Another laugh. “If you actually talk to Aqua without saying anything mean, I’m certain she’ll warm up to you. Besides, Ven would be happy to have you there. What do you say?”

Vanitas’s eyes narrow at Ventus’s name and he searches Terra’s expression for any sign that he could by lying, but all he finds is an earnestness bordering on naive. Terra wouldn’t have any reason to lie to him. If anyone would know what Ventus would want, it would be someone who grew up as a constant in his life.

The thought that Ventus would want Vanitas there sends a pleasant warmth spreading through his body. He forces the feeling down when Terra grin turns from friendly to something a little more smug, like the cat that got the cream.

“You look happy. Is that a yes?”

“Shut up before I change my mind.”

Terra, Aqua, and Ventus all have parents who actually pack them lunches, so they never have to suffer through the bland microwaved meals the school passes off for lunch. Terra waits for Vanitas to get through the line, breezing through as yet another kid at this place who qualifies for the free gruel. Today’s specialty is a bag - not a tray, just a bag - of chicken nuggets and fries, but at least the fries are salty enough to be edible.

Ventus and Aqua are halfway through their lunches by the time Terra arrives with Vanitas in tow. Aqua shoots him a wary look, but the smile that breaks across Ventus’s face is one of the most beautiful things he’s ever seen.

He claps Vanitas on the shoulder when he sits down, setting every single nerve in his body alight with electricity, shock and fear and glee all curling in his gut in a battle with no clear winner.

Vanitas doesn’t eat alone again.

 

* * *

 

ii.

The condolences finally stop coming two days before the funeral. The irony is not lost on Vanitas, escaping of him in frantic laughter when he’s alone in his apartment. The old man died three weeks ago. That number edges closer to a month with each passing day. Having the funeral this long after he died seems like a longer amount of time than is appropriate, but Vanitas doesn’t really know how these things are supposed to go.

What matters is that all he has to do is show up. He doesn’t have to speak or anything, just sit still and look sad.

Even that sounds like too big of a task to check off.

It’s easier when he focuses on one thing at a time. The funeral is still a few days away. Right now, all he has to worry about is making his tattoo appointment in time.

Ventus sits in the passenger seat of Vanitas’s car, watching the buildings go by as they race down the freeway at a surprisingly decent speed. Two P.M. on a Monday means that they’ll actually make it to downtown in half an hour and not the hour and a half it would take during the seven rush hours of the day.

The only reason why Ventus is even here is because the confirmation is under Ventus’s name, not Vanitas’s, and the deposit was too expensive to risk not having him tag along. If it wasn’t for that, Vanitas wouldn’t have let him come.

But he’s here, and Vanitas can’t deny the giddiness that whips within him, buffeting his insides like a storm.

“The sky is less blue here,” Ventus says. “Even when there aren’t any clouds, it’s always a little gray.”

“That’s what pollution does.”

“You’d think it would be clearer, living so close to the water.”

“Yeah.”

Ventus shoots Vanitas a look that he can’t meet. “Vanitas?” he begins, voice soft and hesitant. Vanitas keeps his eyes on the road. He has to keep driving, after all.

“What.”

“Did,” Ventus sighs, “Did I do something wrong?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because this is the first time we’ve talked in almost a week! I’m not saying you have to talk to me every single day, but a week feels really long. Even when I’m back home and you’re here, we at least text every couple days,” Ventus explains in a rush. “And last time we did talk, it was…”

Ventus trails off, clearly too embarrassed to elaborate, but Vanitas knows exactly what he’s referring to. The last time they were together, they spent hours curled around each other, Ventus trying his hardest to smooth out every jagged edge that makes up what Vanitas is.

All he did was hurt himself in the process.

There’s a reason why no one else has ever bothered to stay.

Vanitas’s throat feels tight. Words escape him, floating up to the pale sky above. Ventus is right; the sky is brighter in his memories of that desert hell, and of the town they grew up in. Still, he prefers it here.

“I went too far, didn’t I?” Ventus mutters. “I just… really care about you, and that’s an easy way to show it.” Touch. Comfort. Words whispered in Vanitas’s ear so quietly that they lose their meaning to the sensation of breath puffed against his skin. “Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing, will you? It’s fine.”

 _I feel the same way, you idiot,_ hangs heavy on Vanitas’s tongue. He can’t say it.

He won’t.

“It isn’t fine. If I’m being too clingy, then I’ll back off. You’re still my best friend, and I don’t want anything to change that.”

Part of Vanitas, the part that still rages at how quickly he needed to shed every last vestige of childhood, wants to scream in frustration. He wants _so much more_ than what they have now. There was once a time when he noticed Ventus’s gaze linger on him and passed it off as wishful thinking, but he’s not stupid enough to keep mistaking desire for friendship. He’ll greedily take everything Ventus will offer him.

And wouldn’t Ventus offer the world itself if he could?

( _Ball and chain_.)

But he can’t be that selfish. It’s better this way, that Ventus thinks he needs to keep his distance. Throat still tight and jaw clenched in place, Vanitas doesn’t reply. They sink into an uneasy silence, letting the network of freeways loop over their heads as the skyscrapers of downtown blot out the sun.

Everything around them is the same shade of dull gray.

Downtown LA is weird. Made up of a mish-mash of high-end stores and graffiti-covered chain-link fences, it somehow contains the best and worst parts of the city at once. There’s a restaurant that’s won thirty different awards and costs less to eat lunch at than it does to park in the lot across the street that always smells like piss.

They pass by said restaurant without a comment. Vanitas took Ventus there a couple years back. Ventus paid for parking, but Vanitas paid for their meal using the tip a new client had given him for teaching her poodle how to stop chewing on everything leather it saw _and_ shake someone’s hand on command. The food was delicious, dishes filled with fluffy rice and bright red sausages whose proper names he can no longer remember.

They should turn the corner here, but there’s a line of tents at the end of the block. It’s a sharp enough sight to drive daggers into Vanitas’s gut and get him to speak. “Wait here,” he tells Ventus.

He crosses the street and fishes a twenty dollar bill out of his pocket. Crouching down in front of the first tent, he’s careful to keep his voice level as he asks if anyone’s inside, knowing that there probably is. When your entire life can be distilled into three square feet, you’ll do whatever it takes to keep it yours.

The zipper opens with a distinctive series of clicks, and a man’s head pops out to regard him warily.

Vanitas offers him the twenty. “I’ve been there too, man,” Vanitas says. “It’s cold today. Get yourself something hot to eat.”

The man accepts the money with wide eyes and a grateful smile. He tells Vanitas, “God bless you, man!” as he leaves. Vanitas still doesn’t believe in any kind of god. Sights like this only convince him of that further.

There are no gods. Only monsters. He would know.

He goes back to Ventus’s side, unable to face the softness in his eyes. “You’re kind, Vanitas,” he says.

“Let’s just go,” Vanitas says, the compliment stinging his skin. There was an entire row there of tents, people with no place to settle and nothing but concrete slabs below their backs. That twenty was all the cash he had. It isn’t enough.

They find the tattoo shop, tucked messily between a sandwich shop and a jewelry store. The banner overhead proclaims the shop’s name: _Gullwings._ They’re one of the most popular shops in all of LA, rivaling even the posh tattoo parlors in Hollywood that all the celebrities go to. He had been waiting for one of the artist’s bookings to open up for months.

Somehow, Ventus got him in. He isn’t sure how.

He can’t bring himself to ask.

A girl with long blond hair tied back and tiny braids framing her face smiles from behind the counter. “Hiya there! Welcome to Gullwings. What d’ya need?”

“We have an appointment with, uh…” Ventus pauses, pulling out his phone to check what is inevitably a confirmation email, “Paine?”

“So _you’re_ the three o’clock! Huh. Ventus, right?” She looks at him carefully, as if surprised by something.

“It’s actually not for me. It’s for him,” Ventus explains, pointing to Vanitas. “I just booked it in my name. On accident,” he adds hastily, looking away. Even though his throat still feels tight, the sight brings a tiny smirk to Vanitas’s face. Ventus must have gotten flustered when he set it up and given his own name instead of Vanitas’s.

What little warmth curls within him turns to lead deep in his stomach. He can’t let Ventus make a habit of that.

The girl’s voice is loud enough to draw him out of his thoughts. “Ooooooh,” she says, recognition settling over her features, “That makes more sense. You’re definitely more of Paine’s type of client. What’s your name, then?”

“Vanitas,” he grits out.

“Latin, okay. I’m sensing a theme here,” she says, glancing back down at the computer in front of her. “I think Paine should be ready for you. Lemme get her.” Instead of going anywhere, all the girl does is throw her head back and shout. “Paine! Come get your client!”

“You could have just texted me, Rikku!” a voice calls out, clearly annoyed. Moments later, a woman with short gray hair that falls in her sharp eyes steps out, regarding Ventus and Vanitas coolly. For January, even in LA, it’s a little surprising to see her in not much more than a crop top and biker shorts. “Ventus?”

“Vanitas, actually! The one with the dark hair and the sick eyes,” Rikku replies cheerfully. Vanitas isn’t sure if that’s supposed to be a compliment or an insult, but he leaves it be as he steps forward. He doesn’t have the energy to argue with her.

Paine gives him a brief nod and says, “Follow me.” She turns on her heel and leads them deeper into the shop, gesturing at Vanitas to sit down on a long, flat chair looks like it belongs in a doctor’s exam room. He takes a moment to glance at the art lining her station. Complex portraits full of swirling lines and skulls decorate her wall. Looking at it feels strangely solemn, like he should be paying his respects to something lost long ago.

She grabs a folder from off a nearby desk as Ventus sinks into the plastic seat on Vanitas’s other side. “I made a stencil based off the sketch your boyfriend sent me. Tell me what you think.”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” Vanitas snaps at the same time that Ventus stammers out, “W-we’re not dating.”

Paine pauses, regarding the both of them carefully. “Whatever,” she says, passing the folder to Vanitas. “Doesn’t matter to me. Is the stencil good?”

Vanitas thumbs open the folder. The sketch is roughly the size of a tennis ball - or in other words, big enough to take up most of of his right bicep. The thick outlines of two stars overlap one another; one a deep black, the other a shimmering green. It’s difficult to tell where one star ends and the other begins. The stencil behind it is the same design, but rendered in two shades of purple ink.

Vanitas steals a glance at Ventus, who is craning his neck in an attempt to see. He tilts the folder towards the other boy, allowing him a better view of the stencil. Ventus purses his lips as he looks at it and nods, apparently satisfied with the result as well.

“Exactly what I wanted,” Vanitas says, flipping the folder shut and handing it back to Paine. “Now, how does this next part work?”

Paine runs through the process with him, cleaning his arm off and shaving off the light hair there to give herself a better space to work on. She’s quiet and serious as she works, more of a military commander than what he’d associate with a tattoo artist. She applies the stencil, giving the design a couple minutes to dry as she gathers her needles and ink.

“Nervous?” Ventus asks.

“Of a few pokes? Please, Ventus. Who do you think I am?”

“A big baby,” Ventus shoots back. They share a small smile in that moment, though Paine’s approaching footsteps direct Vanitas’s attention away from the beam of sunlight in the room. Paine is easier to face, anyways.

When she starts tattooing him in earnest, it hurts more than he expected. Like the initial shock of getting his blood drawn, but prolonged over every line she etches into his skin. He can’t watch her do it, feeling suddenly queasy whenever he glances over at her work.

There’s more blood than he expected. It mixes with the ink, leaving his arm streaked with dark liquid that she has to keep wiping away after inking another part of the outline.

“It’ll hurt less if you relax,” Paine says.

Vanitas has never been very good at relaxing. Staying tense has always come naturally to him.

Instead, he focuses on Ventus, who seems more engrossed in his phone than watching Paine work. He’s not sure if Ventus can deal with the sight of blood or not - bruises never warranted more than a worried frown, but Vanitas has never gotten cut up around him.

The stupid part of Vanitas wants to reach out and hold his hand, just to have something to draw comfort from.

( _When Vanitas was young and needed to get his blood drawn, the old man never came to hold his hand. He just stood off to the side, silently waiting for Vanitas to scream himself into exhaustion or for the nurse to finish getting whatever sample they needed. Whichever came first; it didn’t matter to him._ )

Vanitas realizes that he’s not as good with seeing blood as he thought he was.

“Ventus,” he says, drawing the boy’s attention away from his phone. Ventus gives him a questioning look, eyes wide and innocent as he hums, waiting for Vanitas to continue. “Tell me a story.”

“A story? About what?”

“I don’t care. Something. Anything. But make it interesting, okay?”

Ventus huffs. “Wow, great instructions! Jeez. Let me think…” After a few moments, he groans. “Man, I don’t know! Give me something more to work with.”

“Can’t even do one simple thing for me, Ventus? Some support you are.” Ventus winces at the comment, and Vanitas hurries to amend his words before his guilt can drown him. “Tell me about your floormates. You’re friends with them, right? One of them is bound to be interesting.”

That’s thankfully enough to chase the hurt away. Ventus sits up a little straighter, bright and excited. “Oh, yeah! Did I ever tell you there’s a volleyball player on my floor this year? She was recruited by the school’s scouts and everything.”

Vanitas raises an eyebrow. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“I met her pretty early on last quarter. Remember that one night I walked back from your apartment because I was craving chicken tenders?”

“And then you forgot that you said you’d come back with curly fries for me? I’m still waiting for those, by the way,” Vanitas says, cracking an easy grin at Ventus’s huff.

“Not until you buy me the ice cream sandwich you promised three months ago!”

“Yeah, yeah. Debt noted. Get on with it, Ventus.”

Ventus groans, but there’s a grin on his face when he starts speaking again. “You’re so pushy, do you know that? Anyways. I got a massive soda with the food - don’t give me that look, Vanitas, I _know_ I shouldn’t drink soda at night but fried stuff tastes better with Coke - and ended up staying up until, gosh, I don’t know. Five in the morning?”

“This is why I keep telling you no caffeine after dinner, because you do shit like that.” Ventus likes Sprite more, anyways. Always gets it with his dinner in the dining halls. Fried food and popcorn are his two exceptions to that rule.

“I remember now, this lecture is why I never told you about this! I already heard this talk from Aqua. I don’t need it from you, too!”

Ventus briefly glances at Paine, his annoyance faltering for just a moment. It’s enough to prompt Vanitas to tilt his head just enough to see her rolling her eyes at them. He’s content to ignore the reaction, unsure of how else he would reply to it. Besides, as long as he’s keeping still, he doubts she’ll say anything. She doesn’t seem like the type.

“Anyways,” Ventus says, taking just enough time to heave out an over dramatic sigh just to let Vanitas know how annoying he is, “this girl walked into the lounge with a giant duffle bag on her shoulder. She was really shocked to see me. Said that she almost never sees anyone in the mornings before practice, and then started laughing when I told her I was still too wired to sleep. She was really cool. We get breakfast sometimes, usually on mornings when she doesn’t have practice and I pull an all-nighter.”

“No wonder you have days where you sleep for fourteen hours straight. Was your sleep schedule always this bad?”

“My mom used to get really mad at me about it,” Ventus says, chuckling. Vanitas holds his own amusement in, wary of disrupting Paine’s work, but he hopes that his lopsided grin is enough to tell Ventus what he thinks.

He’s pretty sure she rolls her eyes at them more than once over the next hour and a half. Conversation between him and Ventus flows fairly easily. It feels like trying to touch an injury that has yet to fully heal, or walk on a leg that was recently broken. It’s fine for the most part, save for the moments when one of them takes a misstep and reminds them of what had happened before. Some wounds, even slowly healing as they may be, are tender to the touch.

But it’s close enough to normal that they make it work. They have to.

When Paine finishes the tattoo, she leans back, rolling her neck around and shaking what must be a cramp out of her hand. “Done. Tell me what you think.”

Taking a deep breath, Vanitas rolls his arm. The limb is a little sore, but nothing that he can’t handle. He looks over at the tattoo and sure enough, it’s an exact replica of the sketch she had shown him.

“It looks amazing,” Ventus breathes out. “Does it hurt?”

“I was just stabbed for an hour and a half straight. Do you think it hurts, Ventus?”

“It’ll heal in a few weeks,” Paine says, sounding almost bored. Vanitas wonders how many times a day she has to give whatever speech she’s about to launch into. She sticks a large plastic bandage over the tattoo and gives Vanitas instructions on how to care for it as it heals. It’s nothing complicated. Take the bandage off before tonight, keep the area moisturized, avoid direct sunlight, and don’t pick at the scabs. Pretty simple.

Ventus goes back to the counter to pay, chatting amicably with Rikku as he drops wads of cash in front of her. Vanitas never asked how expensive the tattoo was, and at this point, he doesn’t think he’ll ever ask. He doesn’t think he’d be able to handle that kind of weight.

Even after Rikku takes the money, they continue to talk. Vanitas lingers by the entrance, examining the gallery full of completed tattoos that adorned the walls, each frame signed off with a small signature in the corner. He knew that there were three artists in the shop, though he had only seen two in person.

Until he hears an unfamiliar voice and sees Ventus chatting with a third woman. Mystery solved.

Vanitas has looked at half the gallery by the time Ventus has gotten his fill of small talk, leaving the shop with a wave and a promise to keep in contact. Vanitas raises an eyebrow, but there’s something small and satisfied in Ventus’s smile that tells him that he won’t get an answer any time soon.

The ride back is much better, even if Ventus insists on driving under some stupid insistence that Vanitas is now injured.

“I didn’t break my arm, Ventus. I can still drive,” he says.

“Nope! I’m driving. Give me your keys.”

Vanitas groans, but hands over his keys anyways, knowing it’s a fight he won’t win.

The distance between them is palpable in a way it hasn’t been before, but even if Vanitas finds himself craving Ventus’s touch three hours later when he’s alone in his apartment once more, it’s better to keep him at arm’s distance. It has to be.

 

* * *

 

iii.

For all the light colors she drapes herself in, Naminé looks more like a shadow than she does a person. She’s a wisp of a girl, tiny hands firmly grasping the pencil in her hand and frail shoulders settled against the couch in her studio apartment. She perches on the furniture like a bird, limbs tucked into herself as she focuses on the sketchbook in her lap. She’s a solitary strip of white, quietly brazen against her blood red couch.

Ah, that isn’t entirely true. The walls of her apartment are white; the kind of white that’s almost painful to look at. She must be renting the place, so there’s no way she can repaint the walls. Still, she’s done her best to fill the apartment with color. Canvas paintings cover most of the white and the furniture loudly declares its existence in every shade of the color spectrum.

It’s also ridiculously tiny. Probably half the space of Vanitas’s own apartment. There’s just enough space for her couch, tucked underneath her lofted bed, the dining table that Vanitas sits at, and a small kitchenette that they’d probably trip over each other trying to navigate if they both stood in it. He’d go crazy from the lack of space, but she seems to like it.

And then there’s Vanitas, a streak of coal on her dining room table. Or at least his hoodie is. His shorts aren’t. They’re the floral shorts that one of his clients bought him as a thank you for training his dog a couple years ago. They make him look like he’s part of a fraternity, but they’re too comfortable to give up. The flip-flops don’t help the aesthetic.

“Is this what you do all day?” Vanitas asks, dog-earing his novel to save his place and setting it down to look at her.

“With my free time, yes. I like that I can do it on my own,” Naminé says gently. Her voice is naturally quiet, leaving him straining to hear her words half the time. If they had met in public for the first time, Vanitas probably would have left out of sheer frustration at this point and dealt with Xion giving him shit about being a jerk later on.

“Sounds like something a shut-in would say.” The words slip out before he can actually think about what he’s saying. He’s supposed to be on his best behavior. So much for that idea.

Naminé hums. “You’re not wrong.”

Vanitas pauses. He fully expected to hurt her feelings with that comment, poised to let it slip out and suffer the consequences of Xion’s wrath at upsetting her girlfriend later on. What she does is accept it with the same level of blandness that someone would about the weather outside. No point in arguing about it when it simply _is_.

“Wait, what?” Vanitas asks, baffled.

When Naminé looks up from her sketchbook, it’s with wide eyes, like she doesn’t know what was wrong with that entire conversation. “Your way of saying things is, well, a little harsh, but Xion already told me about that. And you’re not wrong. I was homeschooled until high school, but even in high school I only ever had one real friend. I prefer keeping to myself. It’s why I live alone.”

“Yeah, but when someone insults you, you have two options. Tell them off, or insult them back. Don’t you know that?”

“I’ve hurt others to make myself feel better too many times to want to do it anymore,” Naminé replies easily.

Vanitas doesn’t have anything to say to that.

She shows him her sketch before he leaves for the night. A sun slowly sets on the edge of campus, peeking out from behind the ornate brick library that’s one of the school’s crown jewels. Trees and bright green grass line the walkway, leading to three figures scattered across the red brick steps leading to the library’s entrance. One with a shock of blonde hair rides a skateboard down the railing, one hand on the board and looking down at the path they carve. Another one lounges on the steps, sprawled out without a care in the world, red hair trailing past their shoulders and face turned towards the sky. The third sits on a ledge, hands at their sides and facing the glass doors. All Vanitas sees is black hair, barely long enough to cover the back of their neck. All of their faces are obscured.

Despite that, he recognizes two of them: Xion and Roxas. The one with the red hair must be Axel.

They meet again two days later for dinner, slipping into a tiny red and white booth across from each other. The In-N-Out down the street from campus is packed every moment of the day, though at least it’s possible to get a seat inside when most of the students are gone for spring break. Their burgers, fast and cheap as they are, are a staple across the entire state. They’re okay, for being fast food. Mostly, Vanitas comes here for the milkshakes.

Naminé’s sketchbook sticks out of the bag she’s dropped by her feet as they wait for their orders to be called.

“I bet they’re athletes,” Vanitas says, gesturing to the group of massive guys who all crash through the front doors together. They sport tank tops emblazoned with the school’s acronym and the same brand of flip-flops that Vanitas realizes (with a shudder) that he owns.

“They’re rowers,” Naminé says, nodding to herself.

“And how do you know that?”

“They have to practice through break. And also? I recognize most of them.” She points to a couple of the guys, most of whom are tanned carbon copies of each other that would look more in place at a museum honoring sculptures of Greek gods than a fast food burger joint, and spouts off some names. As much as Vanitas wants to think she’s full of shit, the ease that these names come to her tell him otherwise.

It doesn’t compute.

“What I’m wondering is how you know half the rowing team when two days ago you went on about how you like locking yourself in a room with a set of colored pencils,” Vanitas says dryly. “And I won’t believe you if you say it’s because you like rowing.” The only other possibility is that she goes to ogle them, and something about that feels off as well. She doesn’t linger on them now, at least not any longer than he does. And he _has_ a reason to check them out.

“I don’t understand sports. Any sport,” Naminé says, sighing. “I’ve tried.”

Maybe Vanitas is wrong. “What, do you think they’re hot?”

“Not personally, no. I only like women,” she says, tapping her chin thoughtfully. Whatever she’s about to say next is drowned out by one of the staff calling out their order. Naminé brightens instantly at the sound. “Oh, I’ll go get it!”

Vanitas watches her dart through the crowd of chiseled muscles and tiny shorts with ease, greeting them as she passes. She chats with one of the guys as she pauses by the ketchup stations, but the interaction is brief, and she returns to Vanitas before long at all.

Vanitas grabs the bigger burger between the two - because this girl eats like a bird and only got one patty instead of two like a sane person - with one hand and snatches up his chocolate milkshake with the other.

“Anyways,” Naminé says, dipping a fry into one of the three (why did she get so many, oh god) containers of ketchup she got, “I’m also friends with the captain? I go to meets to support him.”

Realization dawns over Vanitas in that moment. He looks frantically back at the team, scrutinizing over each face and violently grateful that the one he does know isn’t there, before facing Naminé again. “No,” he says. “There is _no fucking way_ -”

Naminé’s eyes are bright, shining with something coy that Vanitas instantly hates. “-Vanitas, you don’t happen to know-”

“-You can’t be serious, oh my _god_ -”

“-Terra’s a good friend of mine.”

Vanitas doesn’t mean to slam his face into his burger and scream. He really doesn’t. It’s just that of _course_ Xion’s stupid girlfriend would be buddy-buddy with _Terra_ , despite being two majors that literally could not be more different from each other and being four whole years apart. It’s just his luck!

Naminé, the she-devil she is, begins to _giggle_. “Xion told me you can be dramatic, but I didn’t expect it to happen so fast.”

The next thing Vanitas knows, Xion will drag him to meet her pen pal from the fourth grade and he’ll find himself face-to-face with Aqua. Won’t that be the best?

“30,000 students - maybe more, god, I don’t even know - and yet of course you’re friends with one of the three people I grew up with. Of course! Just my luck!” He laughs helplessly, a little wildly, into his burger. He feels like an idiot because he is an idiot and this just keeps happening.

“Um, Vanitas? You may want to keep it down a little,” Naminé says, leaning towards him. “We’re getting stared at.”

“By the entire rowing team! Great! Maybe they’ll go tell Terra, then we can all hang out together!”

To be fair, when the staff finally come over and kick them out, it’s pretty justified. At least Naminé somehow managed to convince them to wrap up their food for them before they had to leave.

Vanitas doesn’t forgive her (which, Xion would probably argue that Vanitas is the one who is in need of forgiveness, but whatever, it’s Naminé’s fault for being friends with Terra) until the end of the week, when she texts him asking if they can meet so she can give him something. He accepts warily, glancing constantly at his phone as the time steadily ticks away.

When they do meet, after a long day consisting of Vanitas trying to keep Lilo from climbing her own curtains out of sheer boredom, Naminé gives him a canvas. Frowning, he turns it over in his hands and nearly drops it in shock.

It’s a watercolor painting of himself, a thin line of white separating his figure from the night sky. He’s rendered in sharp lines, standing in a bold contrast to the soft shades of black, gold, and ruby that make up his visage. His painted self looks down at the novel in one of his hands with a calm seriousness, the other one propped against his chin. Behind him is a sky bordering on the edge of black and violet. The only real color in the background comes from the gold stars that twinkle as he shifts the canvas in his hands.

Vanitas peers closer, examining the way the light makes the stars and his eyes glimmer in the same way. She must have used gold flakes to get that effect.

Vanitas has never had an issue with the way he looks, but he’s also never given much thought to it. Not even the dudebros of Santa Monica and their obsession with getting the _choicest abs_ or whatever they bother to call it today make him stop to think about what he looks like.

But this?

This painting makes him look beautiful.

He wonders, with a small pang of longing, if this is what Ventus sees when he looks at Vanitas.

Naminé probably doesn’t know about Vanitas’s tattoo, not with this sudden cold snap down to sixty degrees that’s forced Vanitas to wear the same ratty old hoodie all week, but he wonders what that tattoo would look like in this painting. The one spot of green amongst the black - would it ruin the piece’s composition?

“Do you like it?” Naminé asks. “Some people think it’s weird to get art of themselves, but I like drawing the people around me. I feel like it helps me understand them better.”

Vanitas doesn’t have the words for this. He probably couldn’t ever find the words for how this makes him feel. Ventus probably could, and he wishes he could show him this, to have someone to marvel at it with him.

“Can I keep it?” Vanitas asks. He’d never hang it up, but he doesn’t want to let it go.

For all she’s brightened during their time together, it’s only now that the shadow finally gains some semblance of a form. “Really? I’d be happy to give it to you.” Her smile isn’t warm, not in the way he’s used to from so many people in his life, but it’s delighted all the same.

“There’s someone I want to show this to.” Maybe not today, but soon.

“Yes! Please keep it. I just hope that person will like it too.”

“Yeah… me too.” Vanitas pauses, another thought forming in his head. “I’ll need to find a place to keep this where the dogs can’t get it,” he says, taking note of the quiet eagerness that seems to lift Naminé out of herself. “I might need some help keeping them occupied.”

“I’d love to help,” Naminé says.

“Good. Let’s go.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi there are a lot more of you now who are subscribed to this fic!!! hi yes hello. i'm only slightly intimidated. if my legacy in kh fandom becomes "the ucla vanven fic" then you know what? you know what. i accept that with dignity. i love my sad ucla vanven fic starring dudebro dogtrainer vanitas very dearly. that moniker also makes me laugh because we're 60k+ in and the phrase "UCLA" hasn't been used once in text but? it is? very obviously ucla.
> 
> as gay as vanitas is about the ocean i realized a while back that we haven't had a SINGLE beach scene, which is a shame! so this has a beach episode. but not like, a fun anime beach episode. the opposite of that. sorry.
> 
> this chapter is a bit on the short side, but the next one is going to be A Lot. im preparing you ahead of time.

iii.

Leave it to freshmen to want to celebrate the end of the first week of the new quarter. Vanitas doesn’t see the point in it, since the end of the first week means the start of midterms, but whatever. It’s not worth the energy to try to get that across to the three people currently occupying his couch.

Xion, Naminé, and Roxas chat amicably where they sit. Gear’s decided to squish herself between the girls, since she knows that Xion is magnetically drawn to petting her the moment she’s within touching distance, while Void is off sleeping in Vanitas’s room. Vanitas sits at the table by himself. As small as those three may be, he’d still have to fight them for a spot on his own couch. It isn’t worth it.

He glances at his other chair and makes a mental note to buy a couple more. They don’t mind eating on the couch, but he wants a nice apartment, dammit. He may be a college student, but he has some semblance of standards.

Besides, Naminé lives in a shoebox and even she has four chairs around her dining table.

“I’m getting hungry. Do you guys want to go back to the Hill for dinner?” Roxas asks, pitching his voice loud enough for Vanitas to be unable to ignore him. He scowls at the stupid name that Roxas calls the dorms (just call them dorms, or the dining halls, or _something_ sensible), but he stays silent, waiting to see what the others say.

“I don’t know…” Xion says. “I kind of want pizza.”

“We could do pizza. Maybe do a build your own pizza? Xion, you have enough swipes to get them both in, right?”

Naminé and Xion exchange glances, clearly up to no good. “I haven’t felt well today. I’m not sure if walking up all those stairs is a good idea, especially if I have to walk back home in the dark, by myself…” Naminé trails off, pouting.

“Vanitas can walk you home!” Roxas says, aiming a glare at Vanitas. “Right?”

“Please. What do I look like, her bodyguard?” Vanitas retorts. Besides, Naminé’s just trying to play up her girlfriend’s idea. Naminé spent a solid five minutes complaining last week about how late she had to stay on campus just to finish her projects during finals week. She may look like a harsh wind could blow her away, but she isn’t afraid of the dark.

Apparently, Roxas has yet to learn that.

Roxas rolls his eyes. “Sometimes I forget why you’re single and have no friends until you say stuff like that, and then I remember.”

The girls burst into giggles, but Roxas’s bewildered expression as he gapes at them makes it clear that they’re hearing something that Roxas didn’t intend to say. Vanitas replays his words in his head, trying to figure out what they think is so funny.

Until it hits him, and he feels a satisfied smile curl over his lips. Roxas turns his bewilderment on Vanitas, eyes wide and face quickly reddening in shame, before trying to mask it with a pitiful glare. “What are you so smug about, jerk!?” Roxas snarls.

“Hate to break it to you, but I’m not interesting in dating edgy pipsqueaks.”

“Wha- I- You-” Roxas stammers, verbally tripping over himself time and time again. Xion is doubled over in laughter and even Naminé’s shoulders shake from the sheer effort it takes to hold in her giggles. Even muffled behind her hand, they still spill out, making Roxas turn the most hilarious shade of scarlet.

“Good to know you think I’m hot, though,” Vanitas says, snickering as Roxas shoots to his feet. All the blood in his body must live in his cheeks now, given how red he is.

“Get your dumb pizza, I don’t care,” Roxas mutters, gritting his teeth so hard that his breath comes out in short hisses. He storms off, grabs the skateboard he left propped by the front door, and leaves in a whirlwind of classic teenage embarrassment. When the door slams behind him, Vanitas finally bursts into raucous laughter, which only makes Xion laugh harder.

Naminé, however, straightens up, anxiously glancing between Xion and the door. “Xion…?” she asks, setting her hand on the other girl’s shoulder. Xion’s laughter dies instantly and she sits up, mirroring her girlfriend’s expression. Vanitas tries his hardest not to gag, partially from how hard he’s laughing but partially from how schmoopy they are.

“What’s wrong?” Xion asks.

“Do you think we went too far? Roxas seemed pretty upset.”

The moment passes as Xion stifles another giggle. She shakes her head. “He’s just embarrassed. He’ll be back in ten minutes,” she says with such confidence that Vanitas is certain that this isn’t the first time he’s thrown a temper tantrum and stomped off like a toddler before. Xion makes it sound like this happens once a week.

That’s a line of thought Vanitas refuses not to explore. “How often does this happen?”

“Once a week, probably?” Vanitas howls with laughter as Xion continues to explain. “He’ll get really flustered, then go skateboard until he calms down.”

Vanitas is laughing so hard he completely misses what the girls say next, too preoccupied with resting his head against the table and letting his amusement bubble out of him. When he finally recovers, chest tight and out of breath, he spots Naminé’s laptop carefully balanced on her lap.

“Oh good, you’re back,” Naminé says, glancing up from the screen. “We just ordered some pizza. It should be here in,” she glances back down, “twenty minutes.”

“What did you order?”

“One pepperoni, one with sausage, mushrooms, and… Xion, what else did we put on it?”

“Banana peppers,” Xion says, glancing at Vanitas. “Those are the ones you like, right?”

“You did well,” Vanitas says. “How many did you get?”

“Two. Roxas will eat half a large pizza by himself. It was the only choice,” Xion replies solemnly. Naminé shoots her an odd look but Xion refuses to meet her eyes, pursing her lips in that way that Vanitas has come to recognize is her attempt to hold in laughter.

Naminé decides to go along with it. She clasps her hands together in her lap. “I see,” she says with all the gravitas of a doctor delivering a terminal illness to a patient.

( _With all the gravitas that should have been there the first time the old man looked Vanitas in the eye and told him that he was dying, that the doctors gave him six months to live. Good, Vanitas had wanted to spit out, but he held his tongue then and spent the next thousand days wishing that the doctors could have given a more accurate timeframe._ )

When Vanitas returns to himself, the girls are giggling about something else, their conversation soft but flowing freely between them. He’s content to stay where he is and observe; trying to participate is too difficult with the pieces of himself that are still lost to whatever his mind drifted to.

The girls are gentle with the world and with each other. Xion helps draw Naminé out of the shadows and into reality, never a harsh enough light to bring her into sharp contrast with the rest of the world. The twilight sun stretches out the shadows, blending them softly into the scenery around them. Not a stranger, but a welcome addition.

Naminé speaks more confidently to Xion, her chin a little higher and her posture a little more relaxed. They’re not in the kind of love that leaves them with eyes for only one another - they probably don’t know each other well enough to know what that love feels like - but the fondness they carry is obvious.

They’re cute together.

Naminé gets up to retrieve the sketchbook sticking out of her bag. Gear notices her absence and trots after her. When she sits back down, Xion automatically fills the empty space and scoots closer to her, craning her neck as Naminé flips the book open. Gear disappears down the hallway and into his room.

“Vanitas,” Naminé calls out, “Would you like to see my newest sketches?”

“I have nothing better to do,” Vanitas replies, enough of himself having returned to join them on the couch without a problem. He keeps a respectful couple of inches between himself and Naminé, an exasperated fondness running through him at the thought that Xion has the complete opposite sense. She’s pressed into her girlfriend’s side, although her eyes are curious and wide. Maybe they’ve passed that blushing and stuttering part of their relationship, letting their physical contact settle out into something calming and natural instead of strange and electrifying.

Or maybe Xion’s too curious and Naminé’s too excited about the sketchbook to pay attention.

Naminé flips through the book. Xion gasps at the sketch of herself and her friends in front of the library, the one Naminé already showed Vanitas over break. Xion marvels over the details as Naminé beams in shy delight. Vanitas feels a fierce sense of pride for both of them.

She flips through more sketches; some she already showed Vanitas over break, and some that she didn’t. There’s a sketch of the sparkling movie theater that sometimes hosts premieres in Westwood, the lights neon and electrifying against the night sky. There’s one of Void and Gear napping together in the sunlight, which makes Vanitas grin and Xion coo in delight. There are others, too: plants reaching towards the sky, birds flying free of cages, and a boy with spiky brown hair that Vanitas doesn’t recognize standing on a beach.

“I finished a painting, too,” Naminé says, sharing a knowing glance with Vanitas, “But I don’t have it with me.”

 _And it isn’t mine to show anymore_ , he hears in-between her words. He’s grateful for that. It’s a beautiful painting, but it’s special in a way he can’t explain. He likes Xion, but it’s a view of him that doesn’t feel right for her to see.

“Oh,” Xion says. Yet again, she knows when not to push. “I’m certain it’s beautiful.”

Naminé smiles softly. “I’m proud of it.”

“Is that really everything?” Vanitas asks, gesturing back to the sketchbook. “What, did you have people to talk to besides me over break?”

“I saw Terra a few times,” she replies easily, ignoring the way Vanitas twitches. He still can’t believe they’re friends. That’s so _weird_. “My high school friends came back on Saturday, so I spent the weekend with them. It was nice, but they’re so lively. I can’t draw around them.”

“Do you want to draw right now?” Xion asks.

A little shyly, Naminé nods. “I have an idea.”

“No one’s stopping you,” Vanitas says. Naminé beams again and flips to a blank page, hand dancing over the page as she sketches.

Xion, content to let her girlfriend drift to her art, is now the one to get to her feet. She looks around to see where Gear went, but when the dog isn’t anywhere to be found, she just looks lost.

“They’re both in my room,” Vanitas says, and before she can ask, “No, you can’t go in there.”

“Oh, okay,” Xion says, clearly disappointed but accepting the rule. Normally he wouldn’t care, but the painting is leaning against his closet, and… well. That’s not a possibility.

Time passes easily between the three of them: letting Xion’s chatter wash over him and letting Naminé draw away on the couch. Roxas still isn’t back, but he hasn’t texted any of them and Xion doesn’t seem concerned. Vanitas decides not to think about it.

When there is a knock on the door, Vanitas throws it open without a care. Took Roxas long enough to come back. “Have fun tripping over concrete, Roxas?”

Roxas’s carries his skateboard in his arms with their two boxes of pizza carefully balanced on top of it. “I ran into the delivery guy outside,” he explains, pushing past Vanitas and dumping the boxes onto the dining table. He takes a much higher level of care with his own skateboard as he returns it to its previous space by the door. “Also, I got lost. Why is your apartment so hard to find?”

“What, did you forget the number or something?”

Roxas’s glare is enough of an answer. Vanitas laughs at him. He must have been too proud to ask for help. What a loser. “Ha ha, Vanitas. Just eat your dumb pizza already, will you?”

The freshmen all pile on the couch together once more. Naminé puts her sketchbook away and replaces it with a plate balanced on her lap. Vanitas pulls up one of his two chairs and joins them in the shittiest circle he’s ever seen, let alone made.

Roxas really does eat half a pizza on his own. It’s impressive, actually.

And before Naminé leaves, she shows them all her sketch: a simple pencil drawing of the four of them, interacting like they’ve been friends their entire lives. It brings a smile, however small it may be, to Vanitas’s face.

Even days later, the memory makes him smile.

 

* * *

 

ii.

The constant temperatures of Los Angeles mean that it’s pretty decent beach weather all year. Combine that with a massive boardwalk full of shitty rides that light up at night and a decent level of name recognition, and that leaves Santa Monica as the biggest tourist trap on the west side.

It isn’t the nicest beach. There are too many fucking people on any day of the week that ends in ‘y’. Vanitas played himself by spending too much time by the metal structures in the part dubbed Muscle Beach that people now greet him by name when he passes by. If Erik calls him _Brahnitas, my man_ one more time, Vanitas will dig out his rusty _nage-waza_ from his old days of endless judo drills and flip his dudebro ass into the sand.

Still, he finds himself standing on these shores, time and time again.

Near-constant temperatures or not, January is generally one of the coldest months of the year here, and fifty-five degrees might as well be sub-zero temperatures in LA. The skies are a muted blue and free of clouds, but there’s a chill in the air that the sea only makes chillier. Vanitas fights off the worst of it with sweatpants and a thick scarf, the one that always carries a hint of Ventus’s aftershave from all the times he’s stolen it. Vanitas tugs it up to his nose as he walks.

He’s never seen the ocean from anywhere else, but he doesn’t think any other coastline could ever compare to the endless ripples of sapphire as far as his eye can see. He can hear the surf rush to the shore, its gentle roars louder than the scattered voices of the various dudebros and confused tourists that braved the beach for the day. They’re easy to breeze past as he walks, flip-flops sinking into porcelain sand with each step. He keeps his hands in the pocket of his sweatshirt, determined not to scratch the still-healing tattoo that itches like hell on his arm. 

A small flock of seagulls squawk as he passes them, holding their wings out as if ready to take flight. Their feet don’t leave the ground.

He thinks of the seagulls he saw as a child, flying overhead in the desert hell in the early months of spring. He used to think they migrated there to escape the cold weather, but now that he’s experienced life in a city without seasons, he doesn’t understand why they would ever leave.

Leave. That’s right.

The funeral is tomorrow.

Vanitas came to the beach to try to clear his head. He doesn’t like swimming, but just being able to see the water calms him down.

He wishes Ventus was here, so Vanitas could take his hand and focus on his smile instead of the world beyond his warmth. Vanitas’s phone remains silent, the wave of condolences from acquaintances and strangers alike having died a slow and arduous death.

( _Like the old man probably did. Vanitas thinks about his last moments, sometimes. He hopes they were painful._ )

And without Ventus to text him, there’s honestly not much fucking point in having a phone. Vanitas knows that Ventus is coming to the funeral tomorrow, but he doesn’t know if he’s going with Eraqus or with himself anymore. It’s probably better if he goes with Eraqus. The funeral is in Riverside, and despite being less than an hour away from the town he grew up in, that’s a city he’s never been to. It won’t be a hard drive, though. He can make it alone just fine.

Vanitas pauses at the line where the sand recedes from the surf and watches the the water slink up just inches away from his flip-flops. He kicks them off, empties his pockets onto the sand, pulls his pants up to his knees, and wades into the water.

It rushes around his ankles, errant waves spilling over his calves and soaking the very bottom of his pants. A chill runs through his body, but it does nothing to ground him. Spiders crawl over his skin, and for a moment the water is so cold it burns-

( _Hot tea scalding his skin as Xehanort slaps it away, demanding him to remake it. It takes a few seconds for the burn to register as his nerves struggle to differentiate between extreme heat and extreme cold._ )

-and Vanitas walks into the surf until the water laps at his waist, carrying a gentle threat to drag him below the waves. He’s not a strong swimmer. Never has been. Never will be.

The waves are murkier up close, foam obscuring the translucent water that pushes and pulls at him, eager to sweep him away yet far too vast to care about a life as tiny as his. He stumbles a few times, feet shaky, but it’s enough to keep him from falling.

The drive back to his apartment is going to be hell, sitting in a wet seat and caught in Thursday evening traffic as thousands of red tail-lights point towards the freeway, but…

...It probably wasn’t worth it, actually. The funeral is still happening tomorrow, Ventus still isn’t here to hold his hand and ghost his wordless comforts in warm breaths against his ear, and now Vanitas is soaked down to his underwear.

He can see the sun, shining bright and proud overhead, but the chilly winds overpower its warmth.

 

* * *

 

i.

“Your form is sloppy, boy. Again!”

Gritting his teeth, Vanitas runs through the _osaekomi-waza_ he’s practiced throughout the week. Xehanort doesn’t guide him through as many forms anymore, leaving him to absorb as much as he possibly can from poorly-recorded matches he finds on Youtube and the snippets of conversation he picks up from Terra, Aqua, and Ventus during lunch. Ventus will still demonstrate techniques if Vanitas demands him to, but Terra and Aqua won’t. Terra’s too careful about doing anything that could be misconstrued as violent at school - though given the way the security guards eye him, Vanitas can’t blame him. Aqua thinks that those types of things are reserved for a judo mat and not a concrete slab on the ground. Vanitas thinks she’s just afraid of getting a few little bruises.

Still, he’s worked hard to do well. He’ll never win tournaments like Ventus and his friends. He’ll never have trophies lining his bedroom shelves that someone gets on his case for not polishing, nor will he ever have medals to sneak into his backpack and pull out _right_ when his crush-turned-boyfriend happens to look in his direction.

Vanitas throws himself onto the ground, pinning an invisible opponent underneath him with all his strength. Xehanort doesn’t keep any mats here, never has and never will.

What Vanitas has is less tangible than that. Strength. Resolve. Persistence.

Power.

“Again,” Xehanort says. Vanitas spares him a glance - sitting in his armchair nearby, eyes the same shade as Vanitas’s, but sharper and dangerously calculating - and gets to his feet once more. He repeats the technique, pinning limbs of air beneath his weight. He lands too hard on his forearms, but he has too much experience to let such a little shock show on his face.

Somewhere in the distance, he can hear Ventus’s voice, reduced to a ghostly whisper more boyish than what it is now, insisting that his strength comes from the people who love him. That he’d be nowhere without his parents, his friends, the Sensei who became a second father to him.

Then his voice is deeper, older, cutting off his own lecture with a giggle as _fucking Zack kisses his cheek_ -

-Vanitas bites his cheek on accident, the sharp taste of iron flooding his mouth, and repeats the technique once more.

Xehanort’s lessons, if Vanitas can even call it that, used to have some semblance of a schedule. Between the two of them, Xehanort is the one that’s gotten sloppy over the years. He gives Vanitas a legitimate lesson maybe once a week if that. They can last anywhere from twenty minutes to two hours, their length determined by the constantly fluctuating amount of time it takes for Xehanort to get bored and disappear back into his room.

Of course Vanitas is expected to drop everything and report to the living room in minutes, should Xehanort come calling. Homework, projects, messaging Ventus using the Facebook account Vanitas made without his knowledge on the computer he finally convinced Xehanort to give him - none of that matters in the face of Xehanort’s steely will.

He steals another glance at Xehanort as the phone rings. Xehanort’s head snaps towards the direction of the sound. “We’re done here,” he says. “Go make some tea.”

Nodding, Vanitas gets back to his feet as Xehanort shuffles towards the wireless handset. He doesn’t get smartphones, has staunchly refused Vanitas’s requests to get an iPhone for the past three years and probably will for many more. Xehanort has his stupid landline and why would _Vanitas_ ever need a phone, anyways?

Sometimes he thinks about getting a cheap one that runs solely on minutes without Xehanort knowing. He could probably hide it if he kept it on silent all the time.

Vanitas heads towards the kitchen and starts boiling a kettle full of water. Xehanort used to make his own tea, but he’s been pushing the duty onto Vanitas more and more. That, and dinner, and cleaning, and…

Well, most things. The mail is starting to pile up though, and Vanitas doesn’t know what to do with the majority of it. He’s content to let it gather dust. It isn’t Vanitas’s concern until the electricity shuts off.

He hears Xehanort’s voice, suddenly piercing in the afternoon stillness. “Eraqus, need I repeat myself again? I’m in no need of a nurse. Stop asking.”

The kettle whistles on the stove, screaming for Vanitas’s attention. He flicks the burner off and measures out what he hopes is the right amount of sencha, the smell gentle but still overpowering. He’s tried it a few times out of sheer curiosity, but he’s not a fan. Once the leaves are in the strainer, Vanitas dumps it into Xehanort’s preferred mug and waits.

He can’t hear much of Xehanort’s conversation, not with half the bungalow separating them, but he catches a few snippets. Something about Xehanort’s health being fine (debatable), military insurance (something Vanitas knows nothing about and doesn’t intend to learn about any time soon), and Eraqus sticking his nose into places where it doesn’t belong. Vanitas is content to ignore the rest of it the same way he tries his hardest to ignore anything Xehanort does on a regular day.

He glances again at the clock on the stove, then down at the mug. The tea looks about the right color. He dumps the leaves out, gives it a quick stir, and takes it back to Xehanort’s room. The old man is too wrapped up in scolding Eraqus to notice Vanitas, so he takes the opportunity to quietly slink back to his room.

His computer is pretty decrepit and it may take forever to start up, but it’s better than nothing. He slips into his computer chair (picked up from a yard sale three blocks down for twenty bucks. Not great, but passable) and sees that he has a new message.

From Ventus.

He clicks on it faster than his computer can handle, causing the entire page to freeze. With a groan, Vanitas leans back in his chair and waits for the message box to actually load.

 _Look at these dogs Zack and I saw at the park!_ Ventus writes. That’s followed by a picture of two puppies, both with incredibly short fur, floppy ears, and bright eyes. Vanitas doesn’t know enough about dog breeds to know what they’re supposed to be, but they’re not hideous.

_Have you ever thought about getting a dog?_

Vanitas rolls his eyes, but he can feel a smile on his face that not even the mention of Zack can get rid of. _Nope, never have._

_Well, you should! I think a dog would be good for you. And you’d be good for a dog!_

Vanitas has never considered getting a pet before, but the thought doesn’t leave him. He gets bored here. Biking around the neighborhood stopped being interesting by the time he turned thirteen and had every alleyway etched onto his soul from riding them so often, but going on a run with a dog at his side wouldn’t be so bad.

He turns the thought over in his mind for two weeks, which stretches into three, and then four. The more he thinks about it, the nicer it sounds. To have a pet to call entirely his own, something that wouldn’t ever drift to his horizons. Something that would offer him unconditional loyalty.

It’s a pipe dream, but at least it’s a nice one.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: roxas has exactly Two Rules when it comes to people he finds attractive and they are 1 you have to like his taste in music and 2 you can not have ever, IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM have kissed sora or been kissed by sora. he and sora were neighbors growing up and they have a very contentious relationship that is entirely one-sided on roxas's side. and since roxas is certain that vanitas has never even met sora, prior to the pizza scene he allowed himself to think vanitas was cute.
> 
> post pizza scene? you're on Thin Fucking Ice, vanitas


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is 8.5k of... a lot of things. like. a lot of things. for a less serious note: the girl in the middle section of this chapter during the first timeline IS snow white. vanitas never asks for her name because he has no manners around people who aren't clear authority figures, but it's her.
> 
> the huge scene at the end of this chapter is, similar to the mattress scene from the second chapter, one that is really dark. i've teared up exactly two times at things i've written over the 8+ years i've been writing, and reading that scene upon finishing it was the second time. big thanks to nis and atla who were tragically ended due to me sending them this scene multiple times to go over. i wouldn't have posted this if not for them, so my biggest thanks to them for their encouragement and their patience.
> 
> for music recommendations when you get to final segment of this chapter, i would recommend these two videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYrvIKpo3fI for the drive portion, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WChTqYlDjtI for the memorial portion. otherwise, i would recommend turning off whatever music you're listening to (if you're like me, and like listening to things as you read) and letting whatever ambient noise surrounds your life - construction, cars, birds chirping, wind whistling - be your soundtrack.

iii.

Aqua doesn’t belong on this side of campus. Vanitas spots her familiar head of blue hair amongst the crowd, scurrying about the Court of Sciences in the last five minutes before class starts, and debates about throwing himself down the closest set of stairs just to avoid her. Luckily from him, there are several to choose from.

It would have been a great plan, if not for Aqua noticing him before he could decide on what set to race down. “Vanitas?” she calls out, jogging through the crowd towards him. “Vanitas!”

Vanitas could run, but she’s fast. She could probably catch him. He could also scream at her to fuck off, but that would probably result in his death. Neither of those options seem good.

He settles for standing his ground, folding his arms over his puffed-out chest, and giving her the fiercest glare he can manage. She’s half a head taller than him, the giant, but tilting his head up only makes him look even more defiant than it would to look down on someone. At least he has that. “Aqua,” he says. “What do you want?”

“It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other,” she says, her voice carefully measured. He studies her with as much disdain as he can manage, though he has no idea what’s running through her mind. Whatever game she’s playing, he wants no part in it.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Vanitas says, never once breaking eye contact. Looking away means backing down, and he won’t give her that satisfaction.

Remnants of their last conversation run through his mind, stinging on his skin like freezer burn. Aqua’s sigh sounds bitter, resigned to whatever awful fate she thinks Vanitas must be. “You don’t have to always act this way, Vanitas.”

“Act like what?” he asks, but the moment the words are out of his mouth, he knows the answer. What would Minnie call it?

“Like I hate you.”

“After last time, what did you expect me to think?”

Ah, that’s the word he was looking for. _Defensive_.

Aqua pinches the bridge of her nose. “Can we talk about this somewhere a little more private? Hopefully a place where I’m not getting hit with backpacks all the time?”

Vanitas’s first reaction is to say no, but the rest of his conversation with Minnie (that he had just the day before, now that he thinks about it) keeps him quiet. She thinks there’s _unwarranted hostility_ between the two of them.

 _I’ve noticed that you lash out whenever you feel unsafe or scared, Vanitas_ , he can hear her saying.

 _What? That’s ridiculous. I don’t do that. Are you trying to psychoanalyze me right now?_ Vanitas snaps. In his mind’s eye, Minnie sits in that chair big enough for three of her to fit into and fixes her hat silently. His expression stays neutral now, but he remembers the way his face burned with shame as he proved her right.

In the present, he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He doesn’t have enough time to count to ten, but he picks through the mental folders of exercises Minnie has given him to work with. He can’t control Aqua’s hostility, but Minnie thinks he can control his own.

She’s also big on him getting _closure_ , even if he doesn’t know what that’s supposed to look like.

“Sure,” he forces himself to say. “There are some benches behind Powell. Let’s go there.”

They weave through the stream of students as it slowly winds down to a trickle, bobbing heads and backpacks disappearing into the buildings all around them. Sleek glass turns to ornate red-and-white brick patterns as they cross out of the half of campus dominated by the sciences.

Behind the massive library is a spacious patio area - or at least, as spacious as this cramped campus can allow. The benches are big enough for two people who can barely stand each other to sit on without an issue, and they’re all spaced far enough apart from one another to give some semblance of privacy. The wood is warm as they sit down, giving Vanitas enough reason to shrug off his backpack and dump it onto the gap of space behind him.

A fat squirrel darts by their feet and climbs up a limp tree with ease. Vanitas ignores it, the same way he ignores the sparrows that cautiously hop towards their feet in hopes of getting chip crumbs they don’t have.

They sky overhead is as perfect a blue as it can get in this smoggy city. A light breeze threatens to throw his bangs into his eyes.

Someone could look at them and mistake this place for paradise, probably.

“What were you doing over here?” Vanitas asks, leaning back against his backpack. Getting in her face is too aggressive for this early in the conversation, but he keeps it as a contingency plan in the back of his mind. He knows exactly how to make her angry enough to leave if he has to.

Minnie chides him gently in his mind, but he pushes her voice away and waits for Aqua’s reply.

“I wanted to go read in the botanical gardens on the edge of campus. I didn’t come looking for you, if that’s what you’re wondering,” she says.

“But there’s something you want to talk about.”

Aqua nods. “You deserve an apology, Vanitas.”

Vanitas tenses, taken aback by her words. Out of everyone, he never expected Aqua to apologize to him for something she did to protect her friends. Besides, there was a part of him that agreed with her. She was harsh, but she wasn’t entirely wrong.

Even with that thought, he can’t ignore the flare of irritation that surges up within him. “A little late for that, don’t you think?” he says.

“I do. But I’d rather tell you late than never tell you at all. It isn’t fair,” Aqua says, before slowly adding, “And I haven’t been fair to you, either.”

It’s almost like Aqua is trying to goad him into antagonizing her. It takes all of Vanitas’s self control not to latch onto that, to spit out all the vitriol he can manage now that he has an opening she carved out herself.

It’ll feel good in the moment, to see Aqua’s face contorted with rage as she struggles to keep her own composure, but something tells Vanitas that’s not what closure looks like. She looks too earnest for him to think this is some kind of trick.

He chooses his next words carefully. “...I’m listening to whatever you want to tell me now.”

Behind that earnestness is a muted joy, shining in her eyes. She clears her throat. “I don’t like people who hurt my friends. And you hurt Ven the first day you met him. That’s hard for me to forget.”

It’s hard for Vanitas to forget, too.

“But Ven was the first person who ever cared about you, wasn’t he?” Aqua asks gently. “That kindness is also hard to forget.”

Vanitas takes a deep breath, feeling a sudden pressure behind his eyes. He clenches his fists hard enough for his nails, short as they are, to dig into his palms. Not enough to hurt, but just enough to feel the threat of pain.

He refuses to cry in front of Aqua.

Slowly, he nods.

“I thought as much. I spent a long time thinking you were a bad person. Even after Terra started warming up to you, I wasn’t so sure. You make it easy to dislike you, Vanitas.”

 _Sounds like you’re afraid of letting people in, dearie_ was one of the first things Minnie ever said to him. He didn’t believe her then, but he’s starting to believe her now.

“Ven… he never saw that. He can be naive, but he doesn’t blindly trust people like Terra does.” She laughs under her breath. “It was the strangest thing, hearing Ven on his first day of middle school asking if he could invite you over to sit with me.”

“And you told him no.”

The smile that remained from her laugh turns the slightest bit rueful. “All I ever saw you do was cause problems. I wanted to keep him safe and you were the furthest thing from safe I could see. If I couldn’t stop Ven from seeing you when I wasn’t there, at least I could when I was.”

Strangely, Vanitas isn’t as angry at her admission as he thought he would be. He doesn’t feel much of anything - not a numbness, but a simple acceptance. “What’s done is done, Aqua. Fast forward to the good part.”

Aqua rolls her eyes, but she gets his message. “He wasn’t doing okay, Vanitas. He had to drop down to one class by the end of the quarter because of what happened. It was easy to blame it all on you.”

“My therapist called it codependency,” Vanitas supplies. The way Aqua’s eyes sharpen tells him that she won’t need to make him explain the term the way he had to make Minnie explain.

What she says shocks him. “I’m… glad. That you’re getting help. Real help. You mean the world to Ven, but he couldn’t be what you tried to make him be,” she says gently, imploringly.

Vanitas realizes then, that this is what she was trying to get at the last time she spoke. A desire to protect her best friend given words, but without the fear and anger that turned it into a stab wound.

Vanitas isn’t angry. Not anymore. His voice is level, even, when he finds it again. “You went too far, Aqua.”

“I know, and I’m sorry,” she says. “I know Terra went to go speak to you after I left. He handled it better than me, but I should have just apologized.”

“You should have,” Vanitas says. To Aqua’s credit, she doesn’t seem to wait for him to say that he forgives her. Maybe he could one day, but her words still burn in his mind, too harsh for him to offer forgiveness so easily.

“I can’t blame you for that,” she says.

“Hey. Tell me something.”

“Yes?”

Vanitas rolls the words in his mouth, testing them out before saying them out loud. They’re sour on his tongue, tinged with the type of hurt that would leave Minnie frowning. He says them anyways. “You said I mean the world to Ventus. I’d be stupid to deny that. Just as I’d be stupid to deny how much you and Terra mean to him. Who would he choose, between us? Me, or you and Terra?”

Aqua frowns, frustration obviously simmering just under the surface of her calm exterior. Vanitas expects her to lash out, but she doesn’t. She lets her frustration flow out in a long sigh instead. “Vanitas, that isn’t a fair question to ask. I would never be able to choose between Terra and Ven. It’s not like one matters more than the other to me. They both matter. Isn’t that enough?”

Vanitas grits his teeth. “But what if you _had_ to pick? You can’t just leave it like that!” He feels like a wounded animal pushed into a corner, lashing out to cover his own fear.

Maybe Aqua realizes that, too. She doesn’t get mad. She offers him a smile that somehow feels sad. She’s the kind of person who reminds him that, with enough rainwater, even the biggest dam can’t hold back a rushing river.

“Then I would choose both, every single time. It doesn’t matter if that’s not supposed to be possible. I’d find a way.” She says it with such a strong conviction, one that washes over Vanitas like a cleansing storm, the way that LA showers never are. She’s strong in a way that he still struggles to understand. She could easily beat him to a pulp, sure, but there’s an iron in her spine and a steel in her blood that keeps her moving forward.

But she isn’t finished yet. “Ven is the same way when it comes to the people he loves. Trust me, I’ve tried. The only person who could ever keep him away from you is yourself.”

The pressure builds behind his eyes once more. His face is uncomfortably warm, but he isn’t sure if it’s from embarrassment or shame. As much as he wants to deny her words, he can’t. He worries his bottom teeth with his lips and nods, trying his hardest to strangle his own emotions before they show on his face.

She once offered to listen to him if he ever needed an ear. He’ll hold onto that offer for a little longer.

“Are you done?” he asks.

“I’ve said my part. Do you have anything to say to me?”

In Minnie’s perfect therapy world, Vanitas would probably thank her for her honesty or something. That’s about as far from his reality as he can get. Still, he tried, and he thinks she’ll be proud of her.

He still can’t call Aqua a friend. She’ll always be Ventus’s friend first, and any tenuous relationship to Vanitas is a far-off second. But he doesn’t need her to be his friend. He has his own.

Speaking of which, Xion’s probably texted him already, asking him if he wants to get dinner together. He can never say no to a free swipe, especially not if it’s lamb chop night in the fancy dining hall like he thinks it may be.

Slowly, Vanitas feels a grin spread over his face. Maybe he _does_ have something to say to Aqua. “Yeah, I think I do.”

“And…?” she says, wary of his look.

“Have you and Terra finally kissed yet?”

Aqua’s face turns the funniest shade of red. “Vanitas!” she gasps, scandalized. Vanitas cackles.

Just like that, the tension breaks. Aqua lectures him about how he can’t just bring up those things out of nowhere. Vanitas’s laughter is easy and true, and after a few minutes, even Aqua begins to laugh, something small and embarrassed.

When they part, it isn’t on bad terms.

 

* * *

 

i.

Ventus’s mother stops Vanitas before he can get out of the car. She doesn’t lay a hand on him, but there’s a weight in her voice that keeps his hand resting on the door handle instead of flicking it open. “Vanitas?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

She turns around in her seat to look at him. The older Ventus gets, the more similarities Vanitas sees between them: the slope of their noses, the wide eyes that Vanitas has trouble tearing his gaze from, the fluidity of their movements in every situation. Vanitas wonders if people can see the similarities between himself and Xehanort, aside from the fucking molten liquor he calls an iris.

He hopes not.

“Thank you for inviting Ven here today. _Mi amore_ had his heart crushed, but if there’s one thing that can raise his spirits, it’s playing with puppies and kittens,” she says. Her hand reaches out and gently covers his own, the one that lingers on his knee. It’s warm, what he’d imagine curling around a roaring fireplace on a rainy winter night feels like.

“He basically invited himself,” Vanitas says, looking towards the animal shelter. He can see Ventus’s blurry silhouette through the entrance, arms against the counter and probably talking the receptionist’s ear off. For all Ventus has spent the past week at school moping because his stupid boyfriend broke up with him, he looks on top of the world now.

He still has no idea how he got Xehanort to agree to letting him get a _dog_ , but he did. Maybe Ventus had something to do with that as well, given the hours-long phone call the old man had with Eraqus a few nights earlier. He drew the line at taking Vanitas there himself, but Ventus leaped at the chance to come along and help him pick a dog.

“In that case, I’m happy that you let him come,” she says. “I’ll wait out here, okay? Come find me if you need anything.”

“Thank you,” Vanitas mumbles as he finally leaves the car. He jogs into the building and stops at Ventus’s side, effectively ending the conversation between him and the receptionist. She looks over to him and blinks, red lips quirking into a pretty smile. Short black hair pulled back by a headband frames her face.

“Oh! You’re Ven’s friend, right? The one who wants to adopt a puppy?” she titters. She sounds like the birds that chirp at him during his bike ride to school in the mornings. It’s ridiculous.

“Introduce yourself,” Ventus hisses at him, accompanied by an elbow to Vanitas’s ribs.

Scowling, he shoves Ventus away and regards the girl cooly. “Yeah. Anything I need to sign first?”

“Not yet. How about we go find your new best friend, hmm?” she smiles again, all pure light and sunshine. No wonder she’s so friendly with Ventus.

She leads them to the back room, which is filled to the brim with cages of animals. Maybe calling them cages is a little extreme. The enclosures are all made of clear plexiglass, giving the animals plenty of room to run around. Kittens clamber up and down massive cat trees while puppies chase their own tails and yip at the three as they pass by.

At the end of the day, these animals still live their lives out in a five-by-five square, their entire existence summed up by a couple of sentences on an index card taped to the glass. Ventus pokes his arm and gestures to the different dogs, sparing a comment for each and every single one of them. His eyes are so bright, so excited. It’s hard not to stare at him instead of the dogs.

There are dogs of all shapes and sizes, from tiny scraps of fluff that bark ferociously as if they were bigger than Vanitas’s foot, to sleepy old things that don’t even bother to look at them as they pass. The ones that put their paws against the glass and wag their tails as they pass always make Ventus coo, without fail.

He wants to stop so badly and pet each and every single furball. It’s written all over his face. Despite that, he doesn’t, and the way Ventus keeps glancing over his shoulder to gauge Vanitas’s interest in any particular dog makes him feel warm all over.

There’s a dog that does make him stop. An awkwardly sized puppy, too big to be cute but too small to have grown into its body, sits in an enclosure entirely on its own. There’s nothing on the card at the front. No one-sentence blurb about its backstory, no message begging for it to be adopted. Not even a name. Nothing but an age and a sex: five months, female. Her fur is incredibly short and mostly black, save for the white around her paws and the white stripe running down the middle of her muzzle.

“What’s with this one?” Vanitas asks, stopping in front of the dog. She perks up once she realizes that Vanitas is giving her more than a passing glance, but she doesn’t go to him. She sits and watches, waiting to see what he’ll do next.

“Oh, we just got that little girl a few days ago. The owner didn’t explain why he left her here, or where she came from, or anything. She still needs a name, but…” The girl looks away, frowning. “I’ve worked here for two years, and pitbulls rarely ever get adopted. People are afraid of them.”

“Let me see her,” Vanitas says instantly, the words out of his mouth before his mind can register it. Something in him feels off, like a piece of himself is out of alignment, desperately spinning until it can click back into place.

The girl brightens instantly. “Yes, definitely! Oh, that makes me so happy. Every dog deserves love.” She fiddles with the enclosure’s door before it swings open, allowing Vanitas to duck inside and approach the dog. Ventus hangs back, but he looks proud. Vanitas isn’t sure how to feel about that.

Instead, he focuses his attention back on the dog. He crouches down until he’s about level with her. He has no idea how to act around dogs, considering he’s the type of person who deliberately crosses the street whenever he sees someone walking a dog, but this feels like the right thing to do.

He reaches his hand out. The dog doesn’t hesitate as she reaches her neck out to sniff his hand. Apparently he must smell okay, since she pads a little closer soon after. Slowly, Vanitas reaches out and scratches under her ear. She leans into the touch, looking at him with pale blue eyes.

“I didn’t think an animal would actually like you, Vanitas,” Ventus says, chuckling. Vanitas rips his hand away and spins around to level Ventus with the fiercest glare he can manage. Face hot, a retort bubbles on his lips, but a weight crashes into his back before he can get it out. The only sound that escapes him is an embarrassing yelp as he’s knocked off balance by the dog.

“She thinks it’s time to play,” the girl says, tittering. Ventus’s obnoxious giggles (the same that tie Vanitas’s stomach into knots, flipping and churning in a way that he hasn’t figured out is good or bad yet) join the fray and Vanitas wastes the next twenty minutes wrestling this puppy on the ground like an idiot.

He carries her out in his arms a little later that day. He had enough for the adoption fee, but not for the carrier the shelter offered to him at a discounted price. Ventus walks at his side, watching him closely.

“You look weird,” Vanitas says, readjusting his grip on the puppy. She still doesn’t have a name yet. He wants to give her one that fits and there’s no need to be hasty. He left her name blank on the paperwork, but Ventus already offered to fill it in next time he stops by the shelter to volunteer.

Ventus blinks, coming back to himself in a way that makes Vanitas realize he was gone. He must have been thinking about _Zack_ again, ugh. “Give it a rest, won’t you? Zack was an idiot. You deserve better than him.”

“I wasn’t thinking about him, you jerk!” Ventus says. He moves like he’s ready to shove Vanitas, but he backs off at the last second, too afraid to jostle the dog to do anything. Instead he twists the bag in his grip, worrying the plastic under his fingers. “Now I am. Thanks a lot,” he grumbles.

“Then what were you thinking about?” Vanitas asks, shifting the dog again. She licks his face and he shakes his head, groaning under his breath.

Ventus’s voice is soft when he speaks, eyes warm and gentle. Vanitas’s stomach flips again in that unexplainable way. “You look happier than usual, that’s all,” Ventus replies, swinging the bag with a little more force than necessary. “I’m glad.”

The dog licks his face _again_ and Vanitas is content to convince himself that his spluttering is entirely due to the dog slobber clinging to his nose.

Ventus’s mom buys Vanitas a dog carrier and a bed with her own money. She calls it a gift, but once he’s done setting up the dog’s things after getting home later that day, he washes out an empty jar in the kitchen and throws all the spare change in his pockets into it. It’ll take a while, but he’ll pay her back one day.

He has to scold the dog three separate times for chewing on what little furniture is in his room, but something deep within himself clicks into place. Things feel a little more right than they did before, even if he can’t explain why.

* * *

 

ii.

“I told you I’d go with you, didn’t I?”

Ventus stands outside Vanitas’s front door, wearing an all-black suit identical to what Vanitas wears. The only difference is their shoes; Ventus’s are good dress shoes, though in desperate need of a shine, while all Vanitas has is a pair of old black Vans.

The first thought Vanitas has, like the pathetic asshole he is, is how _good_ Ventus looks in a suit. If Vanitas ignores the unnatural paleness to his skin and the heavy bags under his eyes, he would say that Ventus has never looked better.

Vanitas realizes that Ventus looks like that because he must not have slept last night, and the tiny impulse that screamed at him to pull Ventus inside by his tie and kiss him until they both forget about where they should be dies.

“I guess,” Vanitas says. Ventus flinches, clearly hurt by his remark, and it takes all of Vanitas’s self control not to slam his fist into a wall. If his very presence is hurting Ventus, then how much more would his uncontrolled anger hurt?

“Should… should we get going?”

“Yeah.”

The last time they were together was… well, it wasn’t _fine_ , but it wasn’t this. An uneasy atmosphere chokes both of them into silence, even as Vanitas double-checks to make sure he has everything before leaving his apartment. He wishes that Ventus would jog to his side and lace their fingers together as they walked, but he stays respectful. He keeps his distance, every bit the gentleman his mother raised him to be.

Vanitas stops suddenly, just so he can feel the brief flash of warmth as Ventus’s body collides into his own. It doesn’t feel as satisfying as he thought it would be.

Startled, Ventus takes a few steps back. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to run into you.”

“It’s fine.” Why can’t Vanitas say more? Why can’t he comfort Ventus the way he should?

Why is he leaving his home to go memorialize the life of the man who ruined his own?

Vanitas searches for answers and comes up with absolutely fucking nothing.

They reach his car crushed under that same atmosphere from before, silent as they buckle themselves in and as Vanitas pulls his car out of his parking space. He sets his phone into his holder, navigation already pulled up on his phone. They should get there with time to spare.

Without Ventus to chatter away and fill this car with life, the first fifteen minutes are too quiet. Vanitas leans over and digs his aux cord out of his glove box before shoving it in Ventus’s direction. “It’s too quiet. Play something.”

“O-okay,” Ventus says, taking the cord from him. Their fingers brush just briefly, and Vanitas stamps down the urge to chase after his hand and not let go. He takes a deep breath instead, forcing his hands to grip the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white.

A soft, folksy melody quickly fills the air between them. Ventus likes pop music for the most part, but he’d always had a massive soft spot for men with deep voices who can pluck some guitar strings well. He hums along to the words, each note pulling at something within Vanitas’s chest. He wants to apologize, but there’s too much ash in his mouth for him to speak.

Dark gray clouds hang heavy over the horizon, growing more ominous as Vanitas drives directly towards them. It’s not supposed to rain in LA today, but he checked the weather for Riverside and it’s not supposed to rain that far inland either.

As for the long stretch of land between the edge of LA and their destination? That’s fair game, apparently.

It isn’t that the rain starts. It’s that his windshield is clear one moment and the next he can barely see ten feet in front of his car. Rain pummels the hood of his car, drenching his windshield in a downpour so torrential that even putting his windshield wipers on their highest setting doesn’t help. The car in front of him streams water from its tires as it moves forward, creating angry rivers that he desperately hopes won’t cause him to hydroplane.

He thinks about changing lanes, but a quick look over his shoulders decimates that idea. The rain is coming down too hard for him to tell if there’s a car in his blind spot or not. A thick fog settles over them, like the storm clouds themselves are coming down to obscure their surroundings. He can’t see a fucking thing.

“Is this normal?” Ven asks quietly, turning down the music and letting the roar of the rain wash over their silence.

“I live in Los Angeles, Ventus. How often do you think I fucking drive in the rain?” Vanitas snaps. Ventus didn’t deserve that. He knows the stress is getting to him, but he can’t bring himself to apologize.

Ventus flinches. “Sorry. You’re right. I don’t think I’ve ever seen rain this hard there.”

He shouldn’t have apologized. He isn’t the one who needs to. Guilt claws at Vanitas’s throat, but he forces his eyes to remain on the road. He’s never hydroplaned before, but he’s heard about what it does. He’s seen the grisly aftermath on the news, what happens when someone loses control.

He can’t let anything happen to Ventus. He’s hurting him enough as it stands.

Vanitas brakes gently, careful to keep his speed from fluctuating too much. He can’t see the white lines of the road anymore, guided solely by the red lights that cut through the haze from the car in front of him that clearly has the same idea. The storm blocks everything else out.

It isn’t natural, doesn’t feel normal at all for a place as dry as Southern California, but Vanitas supposes it’s fitting for the old man. It’d be a sweet irony if Vanitas died on the drive to his funeral. Leave it to the bastard to kill him from beyond the grave.

Vanitas’s navigation alerts him that he needs to shift lanes to get onto a different freeway at the next junction. Gritting his teeth, he checks over his shoulder - once, twice, three fucking times - and lets his steering wheel drift. He braces himself for the lack of control, of the reflexive fear he imagines would come with his car jerking out of control and out of his command-

-and his car moves smoothly into the next lane. He breathes out a sigh of relief, though he’s certain his hands will start shaking the moment he takes them off the wheel.

“You okay?” Ventus asks softly.

“Roads are slippery,” Vanitas says. “Don’t want to spin out.”

“Oh.”

Just like that, they’re quiet once more. The frantic drumming of his heart against his rib cage slows to a steadier beat, but every headlight whose flash he catches out the corner of his eye makes him jump. Ventus aims a frown at him, noticing his clear unease, but Vanitas can’t bring himself to ask for comfort.

 _Arm’s distance,_ he reminds himself. _It’s better that way._

After half an hour of torture, the rain finally dies down. Sporadic bursts splatter onto his car as they continue to drive, but the skies clear enough for Vanitas to see the road once more. Small rays of sunlight break through the gray, defiantly lighting Vanitas’s way to hell.

They finally reach the cemetery after forty minutes of driving. The rain is completely gone at this point, though a few dark clouds still hang in the sky. Vanitas drives along a long, winding road, nearly devoid of cars save for his own. Given the fact that there’s nothing around them for miles, driving through what’s probably the edge of town, he isn’t surprised.

They still have twenty minutes before the funeral is supposed to start. Vanitas’s stomach twists from hunger pangs, reminding him that he didn’t eat before he left. He skipped dinner the night before too, now that he’s thinking about it. The last thing he wants to do is stand around starving while he waits for this stupid ceremony to start.

“...Ventus.”

Ventus jolts upright in his seat. “Yeah?”

“You hungry?”

“Uh… kind of? Vanitas, shouldn’t we get to the funeral?”

Vanitas pulls over and snatches his phone out of the holder as he looks up a new destination. “Yeah, but there’s a McDonald’s five minutes away from here. We have time.”

“Are you sure?” He looks more worried than he really should be.

“Have you ever been to a funeral before?” Vanitas asks, already expecting the _no_ that follows. “Neither have I. There’s no telling how long this thing will last. We might as well be prepared. Besides, I have a coupon. In the glove box.”

Ventus takes Vanitas’s words for what he meant them as, and he pops open the glove box and pulls out a glossy sheet of coupons. He squints at the paper. “It… isn’t expired?”

“Of course it isn’t expired.” He would have pawned it off on Ventus already if it had been.

Or at least, he would have, before he ruined everything.

“There’s a buy one get one breakfast special on here. I guess I could go for it,” Ventus says.

“Perfect.” Vanitas sets his phone back in the holder, address already pulled up, and takes off. They take a wrong turn or three, but pull into the McDonald’s parking lot with a solid ten minutes left to kill. There’s no drive-thru, so they go inside and Vanitas leaves Ventus to order for the both of them, insisting that there’s no need for Vanitas to pay him five bucks on a day like this.

They slip into a booth while they wait for their order to be ready. Ventus got his orange juice right away, and so he sips from the cup as they wait. Whatever background music the place has to be playing is too quiet for them to hear.

It makes the insistent buzzing in Vanitas’s pocket all the more noticeable. Even Ventus notices it, regarding Vanitas with a confused look. Vanitas fishes his phone out and sees Aqua’s name on his screen.

He knows she’ll be at the ceremony, service, memorial, whatever the fuck it’s called - she and Terra went to Eraqus’s the night before to _support him_ or whatever today. Wherever Eraqus currently is, she must be also. The fact that she’s calling him is bad news.

He answers the call. “Yeah?”

“ _Vanitas!_ ” She sounds frantic. “ _Where are you?_ ”

“McDonald’s.”

“ _Wha- Vanitas, you should be here already! The memorial is about to start!_ ”

“We still have to get our food, Aqua. We’re barely five minutes away. It doesn’t matter.” Besides, he can’t imagine there being more than ten people total at the funeral. It’s not like he’s inconveniencing an entire building full of sobbing spectators by waiting for his mocha McFrappe to finish being made. “If you’re really in that much of a rush, let Eraqus know they can start without me.”

“ _Vanitas, yo-_ ”

“-I’ll have Ventus text you when we’re on our way,” he finishes, ending the call before Aqua can protest any further. Anger boils within him, sharp and poisonous. He didn’t want to come here. He doesn’t want to be here, and yet he is. Some twisted form of obligation and a desire to finally slam shut this chapter of his life led him to come; is it so much to ask for some sugary coffee and a fucking sandwich to help him get through it?

He wishes he had something to punch, thinking back to all the holes in the wall of the house he grew up in that he covered with posters. Maybe that’s why the nurse left them up; he knew what they hid.

He takes a deep breath, forcing him to calm down enough to meet Ventus’s worried gaze. “Might be late to my own parent’s funeral,” Vanitas says, cracking a grin at his own joke.

Ventus doesn’t get it.

“The food isn’t that important. We can get going-”

“-You already paid for it, though-”

“-It’s just a couple bucks, Vanitas. It’s not important-”

“- _It’s important to me_!” Vanitas shrieks, surging over the table and pulling Ventus forward by his tie. It’s a miracle neither of them knock over his orange juice.

Vanitas would never allow himself to hurt Ventus intentionally. It’s beyond the realm of unthinkable. For all they’ve roughhoused and pushed each other around over the years, there was only one singular moment where Vanitas ever did it out of malice, when he was a child furious at the boy who had everything he didn’t.

He promised himself long ago that it would be the last time.

But there’s a flash of fear in Ventus’s eyes as they stare at each other. It should be impossible that the sea, vast and beautiful as it is, could ever understand something as paltry as fear. The sight is more than enough to make Vanitas let go and sprawl back in his seat, boneless and terrified.

“Ventus-” he tries to say, but he’s cut off by a nervous-sounding worker calling out their order number. Ventus mumbles something about going to get it and hurries out of his seat.

Vanitas watches him go, wishing that he was the box of ashes they were going to bury instead.

“I’m sorry,” Vanitas blurts out the moment Ventus is within earshot once more. He has the bag of food tightly gripped in one hand, Vanitas’s drink perched in the crook of his arm, and he looks down at his phone.

It hits him, then. Vanitas knows with certainty that he’s entirely the reason why Ventus looks ready to crawl into a hole and pass out for the next year or so. He’s been losing sleep worrying over Vanitas.

Ventus sets the food down on the table as he puts his phone away. “It’s okay. You’re just. Emotional. Right now. It shocked me. Haven’t seen you act that way in a while, I guess.”

Ventus is always too quick to forgive him. Too giving. Keeping him at arm’s distance isn’t working - how could it, when he’s still close enough to touch?

( _There’s a reason why the ball is attached to a chain. To give the illusion of freedom._ )

Vanitas tries to banish the thought for now. They have a funeral to be late for. “Let’s get going.”

They go back to Vanitas’s car and peel out of the parking lot. The drive is a lot longer than Vanitas thought it would be, traveling down a one-way road with no way to pull a u-turn to go back to the cemetery. Frustrated at the way their estimated arrival time keeps getting pushed further and further back with each minute, Vanitas checks to see if anyone is coming and swerves through the middle of the street. If a cop saw him, he’d get a ticket that would cost just as much as his monthly rent for that kind of stunt.

But there’s no one here to see, and it’s not like Ventus would ever tell. He grips his seat tightly, but the rest of the ride is silent. Their food and drinks sit abandoned on the center console.

They finally pull into the cemetery. There’s a building right near the entrance that Ventus dashes into as Vanitas waits in his car. Moments later, Ventus comes back out with a map in hand. He slips back into his seat easily. “They’re already at the site. The receptionist said to go to shelter F,” he says, looking down at the map. “I think it’s that way.” He points in a direction, and Vanitas takes off.

The cemetery is much bigger than Vanitas originally thought. They drive on winding roads past patches of vivid green grass. There are gaps between the blades, and it takes a few moments for Vanitas to realize that those are graves. It’s nothing at all like the cemetery he sees whenever he leaves his apartment building - not rows of tombstones, but of plaques.

Easier to step on that way.

They speed past a smaller road, keeping a lookout for the shelter they’re supposed to be at. The place is practically empty; the few wooden structures that they do pass are barren. It makes sense. Who would come to a cemetery on a weekday morning, except to have a funeral?

Finally, Ventus spots them. “There!” he says, pointing to the road they just drove past. There are a few cars parked outside of the shelter, all taking refuge under the thick wooden slats overhead. Vanitas spots Eraqus’s familiar car.

“Damn it,” he hisses. The road is too narrow to do a proper u-turn, but he figures he’s late enough already. He swings his car around, tires rolling onto the pristine grass and screeching to a muddy stop when he realizes that there’s a car directly behind his. He stops just a few feet away from their headlights, ignoring the driver as they honk and shout muted insults at him from behind their own windshield.

Once they pass, he tears back onto the road and turns at the proper place. Moments later, he’s parked behind a black van as he and Ventus stumble out of his car.

Eraqus rushes over to meet them, flanked by Terra and Aqua. They, like sane people, are all clad in black from head to toe. Formal, stiff, mourning a man that never deserved it.

There’s too much going on. Vanitas takes a deep breath and forces himself to be okay. “We made it.”

“We waited for you,” Eraqus says, barely able to restrain his anger. “There are _volunteers_ here to perform the rites, Vanitas. We should have begun ten minutes ago.”

A laugh escapes Vanitas. Of course they would be volunteers, because the old man had no military buddies to give him a proper veteran’s send-off or whatever save for the man glaring daggers into Vanitas now.

“Then let’s start,” Ventus says quickly, stepping closer to Vanitas. “Come on, let’s find a seat.”

Underneath the shelter are a few sets of concrete benches, big enough for maybe five people to comfortably sit on. Terra and Aqua join Eraqus on the front-left bench; Ventus follows Vanitas to its twin on the right. The stone is chilly, but at least it isn’t wet. Maybe the storm hasn’t reached this place yet.

Those clouds hang on the horizon, but the sunlight breaks through them in sharp bursts of light.

There are a few other people here. Some older people that Vanitas doesn’t recognize, people with crisp suits and the kind of wrinkles that money helps make less stark, sit towards the back. They must be - have been - coworkers of the old man’s. Vanitas has no idea when was the last time the old man actually stepped foot into his office before he died, but those disability payments had to come from somewhere, didn’t they?

The nurse, he realizes, isn’t here.

In front of them, on top of a stone pedestal, is a small black box. It’s maybe a foot tall, if even that. Next to it stands a large wreath, decorated in purple flowers and tied off with a looping purple bow. The center of the wreath is empty, as if there should be some kind of portrait nestled within the flowers.

There’s no picture of the bastard, just the memory of him burned into Vanitas’s mind. Ventus and his friends probably have no idea what he even looked like at the very end. Actually, neither does Vanitas.

It’s easier that way.

Four men, none of whom can be any older than Vanitas, stand off to the side, arms folded behind their backs and still like statues. They all wear the same sharp military uniform, with decorated caps on their heads and braided white ropes resting against their shoulders. One of them marches to the front of their small procession and barks out the reason why they’re all in a park full of skeletons and ashes on a weekday morning.

“-To memorialize the life and service of this man who served our country faithfully and diligently. He was a soldier, a father, and a man who garnered the respe-”

And really, that’s all Vanitas gets out of that speech.

He twists his hands over in his lap, focusing on the feeling of his own rough skin under his fingertips. Ventus is still close enough to reach out and grab his hand. Running his thumb over the ridges of Ventus’s knuckles would distract him much more thoroughly than this ever could.

Vanitas’s hands stay in his own lap.

Aside from that speech and whatever will happen to close out the end and let them leave, there’s no set schedule. Anyone is welcome to come up and say a few words about the old man. His old boss comes up to rattle off some crap about how diligent of a worker he was, how valued he was in the office, how the contributions he made changed the company, blah blah blah…

When he sits down, Eraqus stands up. He speaks for much longer, but the words blend into each other and Vanitas refuses to listen to him. It isn’t that his focus leaves. No, it’s still here, laser-sharp and more than ready to hang onto Eraqus’s every word.

Vanitas directs it elsewhere. He will not lose himself here. But he also won’t give Eraqus a single iota of his attention. The bastard didn’t deserve it, and as long as Eraqus has something positive to say about him ( _as long as Eraqus keeps picking him over Vanitas_ ), neither does he.

Vanitas’s tattoo itches, the fabric of his shirt rubbing uncomfortably against the still-tender skin.

He isn’t sure how long Eraqus yammers on for. Maybe five minutes. Maybe ten. Maybe longer. When he finally shuts up and sits down, the quiet that rushes in to fill the void feels like cool water rushing over a sunburn.

( _The first time Vanitas remembers being sunburnt, he is four years old and covered in mud. The old man helped him slough off the dirt, baked on from flooding the yard and running circles around the dead gray tree in their front yard, powered by the exhilaration that can only come from the innocence of childhood. The water flowing from the hose soothed a pain Vanitas didn’t even know had existed._

 _The old man saw his reddened back, tossed a bottle of aloe vera at him, and told him that it was like lotion for burns. Vanitas never was flexible enough to reach every tender spot on his back to soothe. The old man never did help with that._ )

His tattoo still fucking itches, but he isn’t supposed to scratch it.

“If anyone else would like to say a few words, please come up now,” says the man who started the entire ceremony. He barks it out like an order, like he’s forgotten how to speak without making it a command.

Vanitas can feel eyes searing into his back, burning him all over again. He’s stopped getting sunburns after moving to LA, always careful to put on sunblock before going to the ocean, but he remembers the sting all too well.

He doesn’t move. He won’t move.

He has no kind words for the bastard.

Vanitas hears feet pound against the concrete. He looks up at the sound, his curiosity winning out over the desire to keep blocking out the world around him, and sees the four soldiers assembled at the front of the shelter. From somewhere Vanitas can’t see, a recording of a trumpet begins to play, solemn and lonely. He can’t remember what the song is supposed to be called, but he knows the melody. High. Mournful.

He wishes it would stop.

The four soldiers take a flag between them, perfect and pristine, and begin to fold it. As it gets smaller and smaller, tucking the fabric into itself, two of them step away. They stand at attention as the others finish, leaving just the man who started the whole thing with a triangle of thick fabric.

He turns to Vanitas and marches toward him. Vanitas leans back where he sits, barely resisting the urge to lash out in self-defense and flee. This is a fucking funeral, not a trial. He has no reason to feel like he’s the one being judged.

The man offers him the flag. Something tells Vanitas that he can’t refuse it. He takes it, letting his attention drift down to the white stars that stare up at him. He has no idea what to do with this.

One of the other soldiers steps away, a rifle having materialized in his hands while Vanitas wasn’t paying attention. He fires one shot - a blank, probably, hopefully - into the distance.

The man who gave Vanitas the flag takes the black box and rattles off something about how the marker will be ready by the late afternoon, should they want to return to visit the grave. Vanitas doesn’t catch the location, but he glances off to the wall of stone drawers that stand in the near distance. It looks like something out of a morgue. That’s probably what they’ll dump the bastard’s ashes into.

It strikes Vanitas in that moment, that everything the old man once was now rests in that black box. That’s all he became, in the end. A small black box.

The military volunteers load the box into a black van and drive off.

The spell breaks, and people begin to move around once more. People whose name Vanitas doesn’t know and never will express their condolences to him, shaking his hand and spilling out meaningless offers of support. Ventus remains at his side, a silent beacon of reassurance, a lighthouse in the distance who guides his path but can’t help him fight off the waves.

Terra comes up to Vanitas after the strangers begin to leave, clapping his shoulder and asking if he’d like to join Eraqus, Aqua, and himself for lunch nearby. Confused, Vanitas looks down at his phone and realizes how much time has passed.

The old man’s life, memorialized in a twenty minute ceremony.

“There’s an Italian restaurant just a few minutes away we were thinking of going to. I saw the sign on the drive down. What do you say?” Terra asks.

The thought of food makes his stomach sour. “Pass.”

His mocha must have melted by now.

“Me too,” Ventus says, still at his side.

When he finally looks up at Terra, he feels a drop of water hit his cheek. Confused, he squints into the distance and watches as raindrops splatter against the concrete.

Of course it would begin to rain _after_ the funeral ends. Of fucking course.

Vanitas can’t help but cackle, fists curled into the flag still in his lap and poison in his throat.

( _Months later, he won’t remember what happened to that flag._ )


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But the less time that I spend with you, the less you need to heal.
> 
> (talk me down)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: hey betas read this chapter  
> me: >:3c  
> atla: put that back  
> me: :3  
> atla: better altho still ominous  
> nis: i see i returned to bri being a menace yet again
> 
> i thought about making a playlist for this fic because i tend to make playlists for all of my long projects, but i don't need to. troye sivan's album blue neighborhood is all the playlist this fic could ever ask for. go give the whole album a listen if you haven't!
> 
> anyways. another solo segment chapter. my betas think that it stands powerfully enough on it's own, and they're smart and know things, so here we are! 
> 
> and i swear. i really do swear. things are gonna get better soon. i keep saying that but i mean it.
> 
> one last thing - i've gotten a few questions about this au as a whole/its lore/other various questions (ex what's x character doing?) in the comments and if you have any i'm happy to answer as long as it's not a spoiler for this fic! realistically i don't think i'll write more companion pieces for this au. counting backlog, this is officially the longest single piece i've written and that is. uh. a lot of words.

ii.

Vanitas was supposed to be able to move on with his life after the funeral. The chapter of the bastard’s life was supposed to have closed, the book finished and shoved back on a dusty shelf where it would never be opened again. Funerals are meant to bring closure.

At least, that’s what the movies always tell him.

He wishes loose ends could be tied up that easily. If anything, they only make him unravel more.

Three days after the funeral, during such a late hour at night that the count borders on four, Vanitas’s eyes fly open. He’s alone in his bed, save for the two dogs sleeping soundly on their beds on the other half of his mattress.

He stays deathly quiet, listening for any signs of a voice. All he hears is the distant roar of a car engine as it speeds down the street outside his apartment and Gear’s gentle, snuffling snores.

The dream that he forced himself out of just now escapes him in rapid bursts. He stares up at his ceiling, eyes straining from the dim light that filters in from the street lamps outside. All he remembers from his dream is hearing the old man’s voice, but even that is enough to make sleep feel like an unreachable goal.

He takes a deep breath, letting it settle in his chest before pushing it out. He needs to calm down.

A quick check of his phone reveals that it’s not even five in the morning yet. He should really go back to sleep, considering how late he was up studying. Funerals or not, he has midterms to study for, and he doesn’t need an extension for it. Why would he, when the funeral is already over?

Sighing, he rolls over onto his side and tries to close his eyes. A picture of the bungalow flashes in his mind’s eye.

Yeah, he’s not sleeping again.

Vanitas extracts himself from his bed, careful not to jostle his blankets too much and wake his dogs up. It isn’t fair to them if they end up following him around this early, especially when he isn’t exactly up to standing outside in the dark and freezing his ass off while they pee. He leaves the door cracked open just wide enough for one of them to slip a paw through and let themselves into the rest of the apartment.

He dumps some Cocoa Krispies into a bowl, flicks his coffee machine on, and eats breakfast long before the sun makes itself known to the world. He even manages to work in a shower and some studying by the time he needs to walk Void and Gear. It isn’t until the late morning that fatigue begins to claw at the backs of his eyelids, slowing his writing and making it difficult to pay attention to the Bruincasted lecture recording he missed to go nearly hydroplane in a storm.

He doesn’t have class today. He doesn’t usually like napping, but just this once should be fine.

This time around, sleep comes easily when his head hits his pillow.

Except Vanitas is back in the bungalow, standing in front of the old man’s open door. The bastard’s eyes are cold as he peers at Vanitas, sharp gold ( _the same fucking thing Vanitas sees when he looks in the mirror_ ) standing as a stark contrast to the sallow skin surrounding them. Vanitas’s fists curl at his sides, ready for a fight he won’t get.

“You want to see _who_?” the old man asks, disbelief in every word. Like he can’t believe Vanitas could ever have someone precious in his life.

“Don’t tell me what to do.” Vanitas spits, rage coiling him tight like a spring.

“You live under my roof. You must abide by my rules,” he says.

“And stay trapped here like you!?” This feels wrong, all wrong, and Vanitas can’t figure out why. Details feel too hazy to make out. One of his posters hangs behind the old man’s head, but he can’t read the words on it no matter how hard he tries.

“How _dare_ you use that tone against me, boy. I raised you. I gave you everything you have.”

“Yeah, and it all fucking sucked!” Vanitas screams, slamming his fist against the closest wall. The sound reverberates through the bungalow, thudding even louder than the drone of the old man’s tv. A realization settles over him in that moment, panic and fear sending his gut clenching in sheer terror. “You shouldn’t be here! You- you’re supposed to be dead!”

This is wrong, all wrong. The old man is nothing more than a pile of ashes in a box. Something so powerless that Vanitas should be able to sneeze it away. How is he back? How can he still be here?

Vanitas darts inside the old man’s room, grabbing a piece of paper off the closest dresser. It’s dark blue, lined with an intricate looking border and issued by the state itself. “See!?” he says, shoving it in the old man’s direction. 

The old man doesn’t react. Vanitas nearly tears the thing in half in his haste to look at it, searching for the name that’ll prove once and for all that the bastard is dead. This certificate proves it.

He tries, but he can’t read the name on the page.

(Why can’t Vanitas just be _free_ -)

-His eyes fly open with a start as he bolts upright, panting. He scrambles for his phone, not to check the time, but the date. He feels hollow and unconnected to his body. An unseen puppeteer moves him by his strings as he goes to his dresser.

Slowly, he draws out a single piece of paper, dark blue and marked with an array of official stamps. Issued by the state of California itself. It took three weeks longer than it should have to arrive because of closures to celebrate the holidays. That delay is why the funeral took so long to put on.

He reads the name on the sheet three different times before tucking it back into its folder and putting it away. He still has to photocopy it and submit a copy to Financial Aid so they can verify that he isn’t lying, but that’s.

That’s out of his capabilities right now.

He climbs back into bed, back resting against his headboard, but he refuses to close his eyes. Every time he blinks, he sees flashes of the bungalow. It robs him of his breath time and time again. It was just a dream. It had to be.

“Void! Gear!” he calls out, voice sharp and commanding. They appear in his room in moments, sitting at the foot of his bed and awaiting further command. He’s trained them well.

He pats the blanket next to him and they both jump up. Void settles in by his hip while Gear clambers into his lap and starts licking at his face. She hasn’t done this since she was a puppy. Maybe she can sense the tension that still clings to him.

But he’s not a fan of dog slobber, so he pushes her off and she retreats to his feet. They’re warm against him, something solid and real, but there’s still an ache within his chest and a gap in his mind where some other part of himself used to exist.

He tries to force himself to be okay.

It doesn’t work.

His phone is at his ear, dial tone steadily ringing away, before he even realizes what he just did. “ _Vanitas?_ ” Ventus’s voice, breathless and rushed as it may be, sounds like honey on his tongue, like sunlight, like waves lulling him to sleep. He hates himself for his own neediness.

In the background he can hear crackling, like wind rushing into his phone’s microphone. He must be outside. He might be walking fast. Running, even.

“Can you come over,” Vanitas rasps.

“ _Vanitas, I-_ ”

“- _Please_.”

He’s so fucking pathetic. He can’t do this. He shouldn’t do this.

But if Vanitas can be honest with himself for just one fucking moment, then he’s scared, and he’s lonely, and he wants the only person in the world who genuinely loves him to hold him and tell him he’s okay.

He’s not a kid anymore, but that ghost of his childhood remains still.

“ _You’re at your apartment?_ ”

“Yeah.”

Ventus clicks his tongue - or at least, that’s what Vanitas interprets the crackle in his ear to be caused by. He doesn’t know how to decipher that sound’s meaning. “ _I’m on campus right now. I can get there in fifteen minutes. Is that okay?_ ”

“Please hurry.”

He never says please, but it doesn’t matter when his mouth is already full of ash.

Ventus gets to his door in ten. He looks uncertain and worried, heavy bags under his eyes and a pallor to his skin, as Vanitas wrenches the door open and pulls him inside. He kicks the door shut behind them and lets his hand travel down from its place on Ventus’s wrist until their fingers are tangled together.

Ventus is warm, solid, real, and it feels like Vanitas can finally breathe again.

He sucks in a deep, gasping breath.

Ventus takes that as permission to slowly bring his other hand to Vanitas’s face. Ventus cups his cheek, the touch impossibly gentle against his clammy skin. “You look terrible,” Ventus says, no humor in his voice. “Are you okay?”

“I dreamt he was still alive,” Vanitas says. “Fucked me up.”

“That was a nightmare, not a dream. It’s over now,” Ventus insists.

_How can you be so sure?_ Vanitas wants to ask. What he says instead is, “Stay with me.”

Ventus squeezes his hand. “Always.”

The dogs left Vanitas’s bed when they heard the knock at the door, so it’s easy for Ventus to squeeze himself into the sliver of space between where Vanitas normally lays and their beds. Vanitas curls into Ventus, face buried in the boy’s neck.

Ventus’s arms curl around him, and Vanitas knows he can’t keep doing this to him. Ventus shouldn’t be at his beck and call every time he stubs his toe and throws a temper tantrum.

Or maybe… maybe this is deeper than that.

He needs help, a kind of help that Ventus can’t provide and shouldn’t have to provide.

But Vanitas has always been selfish, and now he is weak.

“Stay here tonight,” Vanitas whispers into his neck, ghosting a kiss over Ventus’s fluttering pulse. The touch is light enough that he can deny it. Just a byproduct of his lips being so close to skin, nothing more.

But when Ventus’s breath hitches and he holds Vanitas even tighter, there’s no denying that they both know the truth. “I…” Ventus hesitates, “...had class today. I don’t tomorrow. I’ll stay as long as you want me to.”

Ventus falls asleep shortly after that, but Vanitas can’t bring himself to try again. That void in his mind remains, even as what little shore is left is made entirely of Ventus. His voice, his laugh, his warmth, the steady rhythm that his chest rises and falls to as he sleeps.

Vanitas watches him, trying to inscribe all of it into his mind. He wants to crystallize this memory, keep it on his shelf to hold onto forever.

He sweeps Ventus’s bangs off his forehead and presses his lips there. As gently as someone like him can manage, because Ventus is a precious gift he can’t break any longer. Ventus hums in his sleep and his mouth twitches up in the beginnings of a smile.

Vanitas’s heart shatters.

One last night, and no more.

Vanitas leaves for class half an hour earlier than he usually would, closing his door to the sight of Ventus still asleep in his bed with a note that there’s no need to return the pajamas he borrowed for the night.

There’s a large building right on the main path of campus that Vanitas passes by every day. _Counseling and Psychological Services_ is adorned on the side of the wall in large gray letters, but everyone just calls it CAPS. Their hotline is on the back of every single ID card. The school’s big on touting its mental health resources, but Vanitas has been around here long enough to know the rumors.

There’s a backlog. It’s hard to get an appointment, especially once midterms roll around. Most people only seek help when their grade is on the line.

Vanitas walks up to the second floor and finds the receptionist there. The rest of the floor is empty - it makes sense, given how early it is. The man greets him with a kind smile and a gentle voice.

“...Hi,” Vanitas says. “I need to make an appointment.”

“Okay, we can definitely help you with that. Have you taken our initial screening test yet?” the receptionist asks, all soft words and quiet reassurance.

“...No.”

“You can do so at that computer right over there,” he says, gesturing to one of the screens behind Vanitas. They’re boxed away, as if an extra panel of wood could provide some measure of privacy. Vanitas does, filling out the entire thing in ten minutes.

But the way the receptionist hums tells him that he’ll be lucky if he gets an appointment before summer comes. He has a backup plan, though.

“By the way, I’m here because I went to my father’s funeral earlier this week,” Vanitas drops casually, watching as the receptionist’s smile gives way to wide-eyed horror. “Think I can get a rush order?”

He gets scheduled for the following week.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we have a few more short chapters coming up so i'm trying to get them out quickly, so uh! take this! 
> 
> there are so many people reading, and commenting, and subscribing, and i am very honored and happy to see this kind of reception!!! just a big general thank you to everyone once again. i hope that if you've gotten this far in that you like this story, and that you continue to like it! yeah.

iii.

_Are you free right now?_ The words are quickly followed by a smiling emoji.

Vanitas peers at his phone and types out a response. _I probably failed the hardest midterm of my life two hours ago. The only thing I care about right low is laying on my couch and marathoning The Great British Baking Show until I have to walk Void and Gear. That answer your question?_

Xion sends an emoji even happier than her last one. _I love that show! Can I come over in… 30 minutes?_

Vanitas rolls his eyes, but at least there’s no one around to hear his amused huff. If she wants to pilfer his Netflix subscription and pet his dogs, then he doesn’t see a reason to stop her. They’re asleep in their beds right now, but they’ll wake up the moment they hear her voice. _Knock yourself out._

He texts her the gate code so she can let herself in and goes back to his show. He’s watching a man make a lion out of bread when there’s a knock on his door. He gets to his feet with a grunt and throws it open.

Xion smiles up at him with all the joy of someone who didn’t just bomb a midterm worth forty percent of their grade. “Hi, Vanitas!”

He steps aside to let her in, now noticing the white tote bag hanging off her shoulder (emblazoned with the school’s logo, of course. If it isn’t black, it’s blue and gold. _Go Bruins_ or whatever). The bottom sags, clearly filled with something that isn’t laptop or wallet shaped.

In that same moment, it hits him that he’s spent enough time around her to know what occasions warrant what kinds of bags. Huh.

“What’s with the bag?” he asks, snatching the remote off the couch and pausing his show when he sees her make her way towards his small kitchen. She’s humming something under her breath, and it takes him a moment to realize that it’s a song from the concert they went to last quarter.

His dogs pad out of the bedroom. Gear perks up at the sight of Xion and rushes to meet her, with Void trotting calmly behind. Giggling, Xion drops to her knees and wraps Gear in a tight hug. Void comes over and licks her face, tail wagging.

Vanitas leans against his kitchen counter, craning his neck to try to peer into the bag she left there. The top folds over itself, leaving its contents just as mysterious as before.

She gets to her feet right as Vanitas’s impatience is about to win out over his common sense telling him not to rifle through someone else’s junk. She grabs the bag and pulls out a container of baking soda, a small bottle of vanilla extract, and a bag of chocolate chips. “I brought some things to make cookies!” she says. “I figured you would have most of the other ingredients, so I stopped by Axel’s place before coming over for what I’m pretty sure you don’t have.”

She isn’t wrong. His supply of chocolate usually comes from bars he bought from the closest Trader Joe’s, now that he’s gone through the five stages of grief about accepting that he does most of his grocery shopping standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a bunch of dudebros and granola girls. He doesn’t bake, so he’s never had a reason to get vanilla or baking soda. He’s pretty sure baking soda’s main use is for absorbing odors in fridges, but he cleans his fridge too often to ever justify needing some.

“If you wanted to use someone’s oven, why not stay at Axel’s place? It’s going to be your oven next year. Might as well start getting used to it,” Vanitas points out.

“I thought about that. That way, I could bring over fresh cookies to cheer you up, but I thought it’d be more fun to do it together. Unless you don’t want to?” Xion says, and she gives him a look that only convinces him that she’s spent too much time around his dogs. She’s got the sad puppy look mastered.

“I’m… not against cookies,” Vanitas says slowly. Hard to be against anything with chocolate in it. “But why make them when you can just buy them and not cough up a pound of flour?”

“Because it’s fun! And they taste better, too. Aaaaand,” she pauses, smiling a little deviously when she sees Vanitas lean forwards slightly to figure out what the big secret is, “you can put as many chocolate chips in them as you want.” She holds up the bag. “The recipe I have only calls for two cups of chocolate chips. I bought a lot more than that.”

She may actually be the most brilliant person he’s ever met. “We’re making them. Pull up a recipe on your phone.”

Giggling again, Xion nods. She knows she’s won, but at least she’s not as smug about it as she could be. God, if Roxas was here? Or _Kairi?_ He wouldn’t hear the end of it.

They start pulling out the ingredients. Vanitas is content to let Xion tell him what they need, though when the recipe calls for softened butter, they both agree to dump the butter in a bowl and microwave it for a minute. Melted butter is definitely soft.

“You seem happier already,” Xion says, smiling to herself as she measures out a cup of brown sugar. Vanitas dumps the melted butter into a bigger bowl and she shakes the cup until the sugar falls into the butter with a satisfying _plop_.

“I could do worse things with my time than let you use my oven.”

“But I didn’t want to use your oven. I wanted to hang out and cheer you up,” Xion insists. “You’d do the same for me if I was sad.” She measures out another cup of sugar and lets it fall into the bowl before passing it over to Vanitas to mix. He’s supposed to beat it until smooth, whatever that means. He’ll just stir it until Xion dumps the next thing in.

He gets ready to protest, but lets his mouth snap shut with an audible click. He doesn’t have a retort for her.

Again, she isn’t wrong.

“I like trying new coffee shops with you and _not_ getting kicked out of them,” she says, casting an icy look at him as she pulls out his carton of eggs out of the fridge, “But we don’t need to always be trying something new or using your apartment to study. Just spending time with you is nice.”

“So the cookies…”

“Are for you. No one can stay sad after eating fresh-baked cookies, even if they did take a hard midterm. Which I’m pretty sure you didn’t fail, by the way. You’re really smart, Vanitas, and you study hard.”

Vanitas snorts, but there’s a tiny warmth in him that keeps him from protesting too much. “You should have seen me in high school. Coasted by with nearly straight C’s ‘til I dropped out.”

She stops trying to measure out the vanilla they need. “You… dropped out?”

“Yeah. Got a GED later on, then I started going to the community college in Santa Monica, like half of the transfer students here.” Perks of unintentionally going to a feeder school because there’s nowhere else you could realistically attend, he supposes.

“Oh,” Xion says. “Can I ask why you dropped out?”

“Later. It’s too shitty of a story for cookies.”

“Okay.” She leans towards him and upon seeing the mush of brown in the bowl, cracks open a couple of eggs into the mix. “Go ahead and mix those in,” she says.

Smart girl.

He thinks about what she said earlier as they finish mixing the batter. She isn’t here to use his oven. She isn’t looking for something out of him. Hell, she brought over these ingredients for _his sake_. If she wanted a cookie, she could have gone to any one of the dining halls and snagged a handful of them for free.

All she wanted was to make him feel better.

He feels a sudden pressure behind his eyes, something that is ridiculously irritating for how familiar it is. There is no way in _hell_ he is going to cry over a bunch of fucking cookies.

“Hey, Vanitas?”

“What?”

“Thank you for being my friend.”

That does it. He lets go of his spoon and turns away, breathing heavily. He looks up at the ceiling, trying his hardest to keep any tears from falling. Xion’s at his side in an instant, her worry so pure and good that it makes all of his efforts at holding them back meaningless.

“Are you… crying?” she asks softly, more worried than she should be. Her hands is comforting where it rests on his forearm. He chokes back something that could be mistaken for a sob, but most definitely isn’t. There’s no way he is crying over this. Impossible. She’s just seeing things that aren’t there.

“I’m fine. Happy,” he says, voice tight. He sucks in a deep breath through his mouth and grips small slab of counter next to his stove. On an afterthought, he flicks the oven on. 350 degrees sounds like a good temperature to bake cookies at. It’s what he cooks everything else at any time he has to roast something in the oven.

“So… they’re not bad tears?”

He scrubs at his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She gets it yet again. Her hand remains, but her laugh erases any lingering remain of worry. He steals a glance at her, feeling a tear roll down his cheek because she’s so short that he has to look down to see her grin, and tries to offer a shaky smile back. It’s probably more of a grimace, but she doesn’t shy away.

“I should be thanking you, anyways,” he forces out through what must be sheer luck.

Xion shakes her head. “It’s what friends do, right? Cry in each other’s kitchens?”

That makes him laugh. “Guess so.”

 

* * *

 

i.

“You seem happier than before, Ven,” Aqua says, smiling even as a chilly gust of wind ruffles her hair. Winter isn’t as unbearably cold as it is in the desert, the winds gentler than the screaming blasts of air that cut through fabric and straight into your bones there, but it still isn’t pleasant. Vanitas has always preferred the heat. He’d take sweating through his shirt over unbearable shivering any day.

The same gust of wind causes them all to react in different ways. Terra just doesn’t react, probably insulated by his ugly puffy jacket and the ridiculous layers of muscle he’s gained from taking a weights class instead of P.E. this year. Vanitas grits his teeth and refuses to let his shivering show, while Ventus…

Well, Ventus shudders and scoots a little closer to Vanitas, obviously seeking out the closest body of warmth that isn’t preoccupied with the thermos of hot soup in her lap. Aqua’s the type of teacher’s pet that gets to use the microwaves hidden away behind her calculus teacher’s desk, which means that all she has to worry about is not spilling tomato soup all over herself.

Ventus presses his arm against Vanitas’s, his warmth barely detectable through the four layers of fabric separating them. Vanitas looks at him, bewildered, but Ventus is too focused on plucking the grapes in his hands off the stem to notice anything else. “I guess I am, aren’t I?”

“Are you finally over... _him_?” Terra asks, earning an admonishment and a disgustingly gentle smack on the arm from Aqua.

“Who, Zack? It’s been a couple months since we broke up,” Ventus says, holding a grape for Vanitas to take. He does, because if he doesn’t, Ventus will just keep shoving it in his face until he relents.

“Hey you said his name! That’s a big improvement,” Terra says, reaching past Aqua to clap Ven’s shoulder. Ventus laughs, embarrassed, but the sound is enough both to surprises Vanitas and to send a shiver in earnest crashing through him.

It’s enough to attract Ventus’s attention. “If you’re cold, you should come closer. Come on, this is how penguins survive in Antarctica. They huddle for warmth,” Ventus chides Vanitas, jostling Vanitas and his shitty cafeteria salad as he gets even _closer_. Vanitas is saved from a certain death by Aqua, of all people, who laughs and joins the huddling crap. Even Terra gets in on the nonsense, leaving the four of them squished together on the planter.

“You’re all idiots. It’s barely fifty degrees out,” Vanitas spits, but he’s the biggest idiot for not moving. Ventus rolls his eyes and offers another grape, which Vanitas takes and chews with his mouth open solely because he knows it’ll gross Ventus out.

“And you’re nasty! Stop that,” Ventus complains. “Anyways,” he says, turning away from Vanitas and pointedly ignoring his (entirely justified) scowl, “I know he was my longest relationship, but I think I’m okay now. Remember my first girlfriend? The one I had freshman year? Man, _that_ breakup was bad.”

The breakup was bad, but so was the girlfriend. Ventus is fine around her these days, but Vanitas takes pride in how terrified she is of him. She’s a good person to practice his scariest looks on. Someone has to keep her in her place.

He’ll do the same for Zack, but he won’t be alone. Aqua doesn’t like him much either, though from the scraps of gossip Vanitas has unwittingly picked up, that’s due to the awkward disaster that happened when Zack asked Aqua to some stupid dance last year.

“Maybe next time, _don’t_ break up with them over text,” Aqua says, covering her mouth and what must be a shitty grin plastered on it with her hand. She looks daintier that way, keeping herself pretty in the way that girls are and that she’s always been. Hell, she’s prettier than most girls are, but even at gunpoint Vanitas would never admit that out loud. It’s true, though.

He’s seen the way Terra looks at her when she isn’t paying attention. It’s the same way he looks at her now.

“I apologized!” Ventus defends himself, only getting more exasperated as Aqua laughs. “Jeez, you and Terra give me more grief than she ever did!”

“That’s what friends do,” Terra supplies helpfully. Still laughing, Aqua nods.

Vanitas shifts, unable to get comfortable on the cold concrete of the planter, and shoves a forkful of wilted lettuce in his mouth. He doesn’t have anything to add to this conversation. The others seem to sense the same lull in conversation, and Terra changes the subject. “Have you guys figured out your schedules for next year?”

“You guys are gonna be seniors! Don’t remind me,” Ventus laments. “It’s hard enough when you go to a different school without me. But college? You won’t even be in _town_ anymore.”

“Don’t worry, Ven. We still have time,” Aqua says, patting his arm. Vanitas wonders if the gesture comforts Ventus. If she did it to Vanitas, he’d only feel attacked.

“Aqua’s right. Besides, we’ll always come home to visit,” Terra says. A combination of Aqua’s ministrations and Terra’s words is enough to comfort Ventus. He nods slowly.

College is strange to think about. Vanitas isn’t on track for it, not the way that they all are. He’s in an advanced math class this year, but that was mostly because Ventus goaded him into taking it together. He’s nothing at all like Aqua, whose only elective for the past three years has been jazz band because she takes too many advanced classes to do anything else, or Terra, who breezed through the basic subjects while he was homeschooled and had nothing better to do than pick up trash on the side of the freeway.

Meanwhile, Ventus is starting to talk about becoming a vet, which requires a hell of a lot more schooling than they currently have.

All Vanitas has is the possibility of taking an advanced chemistry course next year. Chemistry is logical, full of patterns and puzzles that he enjoys figuring out. Anatomy seems interesting enough, too. Maybe he’ll even take Calculus, provided Ventus whines loudly enough at him about it.

School is boring, but it’s quickly becoming the only justified excuse he has to leave the house. Sleeping through a teacher’s lecture is leagues above dealing with Xehanort’s constant demands for Vanitas to fetch him stuff or heat up his food. Aside from the brief forty-five minute reprieves he gets from walking Void, he tends to feel trapped in the bungalow. It doesn’t help that Xehanort’s misses more work than not these days.

He doesn’t care about the college experience. He’ll apply when the time comes, but it’s nothing more than a way to get out of Xehanort’s house and this shitty town for good. Once he leaves, he won’t look back.

Until then, he waits.

“Vanitas, what elective are you thinking of signing up for? Do you want to join yearbook with me?” Ventus asks.

“You have to stay after school for that, don’t you.”

“Not too often. A couple times a month for most of the year. Before the yearbook comes out, it’s three days a week.”

“Use your brain for once, Ventus. It’s not an option.”

Aqua scolds him for being mean again, but he ignores it, just like he typically ignores her whenever she talks to him. He also has to ignore Ventus’s frown, the sight of it threatening to make something in his chest squeeze painfully. He hates it - all of it. Ventus’s disappointment is confusing, but what’s more confusing is the guilt it inspires within Vanitas. Maybe this is what it feels like to have the tides recede around your ankles when you wanted nothing more for them to stay.

If Vanitas does make it to college, he hopes he can choose one close to the ocean. He’d like to see it for himself.

“I have an extra elective open next year. I’m thinking of trying out woodshop, and I know a few people in there already. They never stay after school. How does that sound, Vanitas?” Terra asks. Vanitas jolts upright at the sound of his name. Hearing Terra say it with no evident frustration still feels weird.

“Is this some kind of trick?” he asks, leaning past Ventus to eye Terra warily.

Terra just looks confused, like the big oaf he is. “What? No. Why would it be?”

“You already have me in one class, Terra.”

“And next year I could have you in one class too. I think you’ll like it. What do you say?”

Vanitas leans back. He doesn’t have many options. “I’ll think about it.”

When the time comes to submit their class preferences for next year, Vanitas really doesn’t find many other options. His only other options were study hall or pottery, and he’d rather suffer through splinters than spend an entire year overhearing kids gossip about who gave who a blowjob in the bathroom or waste hours making ugly clay pots.

Vanitas cajoles his way into getting a dumb phone, a tiny thing with a camera that only works half the time but has unlimited texting for two dollars a day. He spends his summer walking the neighbor’s dog for petty cash during Xehanort’s sporadic naps, making a little more than enough to buy Void some better toys, food that isn’t processed pig’s feet, and have some left over to text Ventus every other day.

On the days when he fucks up and walks either dog too late in the morning, he ends up having to carry them back home. At first he struggles under the increasingly large pounds of dog in his arms, but it gets easier as the days pass.

It’s not great. It’s on-par for one of his worst summers to date.

But his dog sleeps with him on his bed when he gets so angry that he punches his wall and leaves a dent in the plaster, and Ventus’s stupid stories leave him with pleasant dreams at night more often than they don’t.

On the first day of junior year, Ventus, skin a shade darker and hair a shade lighter than Vanitas remembers, spots Vanitas from across the courtyard and comes running. He wraps Vanitas in a tight hug, and even though it’s brief, it leaves Vanitas with electricity crackling through every part of him.

His smile looks different - brilliant, blinding, making Vanitas’s breath catch in his throat. His braces are finally off, Vanitas realizes.

“Oh man, it’s so good to see you again!” Ventus detangles them, holding Vanitas at arm’s length. Vanitas watches him with wide eyes, feeling more helpless than he ever has before. Some tiny part of him screams for Ventus to come close once more. Barring that, it screams at Vanitas to never let that smile fade. “Did you get a gym membership or something?” he asks, eyes bright with amusement.

“If you count bench pressing German Shepherds and pitbulls as a workout, then yeah,” Vanitas replies dryly. It’s a small miracle that he can speak. “Of course not, Ventus. Do I look like I’m made of money?”

Ventus’s laughter, light and cheerful in the early morning rush, is one of the best things Vanitas has ever heard.

Another thought strikes him in that moment, a something deceptively simple that lifts itself out of the bogs of his mind like it has every right to.

He thinks that he might be in love, and that he’s probably been in love for a long time.

It snuck up on him without his knowledge, footsteps muffled against the carpet so he couldn’t sense this feeling coming. But now it’s here, holding his arms and watching him with pure joy, and it’s the most exhilarating and terrifying thing he’s ever experienced.

( _Those words will cross his mind twice more, and then he won’t let himself think of them for years._ )

What Vanitas _does_ is shrug off Ventus’s grasp and turn away. “Stop laughing,” he mutters, reveling in the way Ventus laughs harder and jogs to catch up to his side.

 

* * *

 

ii.

Aqua invites Vanitas out to breakfast in the fancy dining hall. She doesn’t take no for an answer.

She sits in front of him now, glaring at Vanitas with so much vitriol that she’d probably be attempting to stab him with the butterknife she’s currently using to cut her vegetable stuffed whole wheat crepe into perfect little squares if murder wasn’t illegal.

Vanitas cuts off a piece of his omelet with his fork and shoves it into his mouth, the taste of bell peppers and house-made organic ketchup flooding his tongue. The food is amazing, but the cost of a full stomach is her attempts to eviscerate him with her scowl alone.

“Are you going to tell me why you hate me today, or are you just going to spend the next half hour eating angrily?” Vanitas asks, taking a sip of his coffee. The hot chocolate machine wasn’t working so he had to settle for an unholy amount of vanilla soy creamer instead of the mocha he wanted. The taste is strange, just like the situation he finds himself in.

“Whatever you’re doing to Ven, you better stop it,” Aqua says, stabbing her tiny square so hard the mushrooms fall out across her plate.

The piece of omelet he’s in the middle of chewing turns to ash on his tongue. He snatches a napkin out of the nearest holder and spits the half-chewed remains into the paper. Anxiety and cold fear settle like a lead weight in his stomach, completely obliterating his appetite.

She’s seen it, too. It’s that bad.

Still, he’s never been one to just roll over on his back and let Aqua win. “Been waiting to tell me that for a while, hmm? How long’s it been now… sixteen years? Am I counting right?”

“Cut the crap, Vanitas! You know what I’m talking about. Ven’s exhausted constantly.”

“We go to one of the toughest schools in the country. Everyone’s exhausted constantly.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t matter to you, does it?” Aqua spits. “I could overlook it when he skipped lectures for you. I saw the salads rotting in his fridge when he’d get so worried over you he couldn’t eat. I _went with him_ to Target so I could help him find concealer for the bags under his eyes. And I wasn’t happy, but I accepted it. But this? I can’t _believe_ you made Ven skip a midterm. For what, Vanitas? To hold your hand? To play photographer for your newest Instagram post?” She stabs another piece of her crepe, nearly denting her plate with the sheer force she uses. “Tell me if it was worth him failing his class.”

Vanitas chokes down the bile that surges up his throat. He scrambles for his water, sloshing some across the table in his attempt to grab it and soaking Aqua’s crepe. Furious, she slams her hands on the table and _snarls_ at him, reminding Vanitas exactly why rivers are terrifying when they flood.

He manages to swallow before he coughs water all over her, too. “He did _what_ ,” he chokes out.

“Don’t play dumb, Vanitas! You know exactly what you did. How can you be so selfish?” If looks could kill, it would be mercy for Aqua’s to have left him for dead in a ditch by now. Everything makes sense in the worst possible way - how Ventus hesitated when he talked about class, why he looked even more haggard than what Vanitas has grown used to seeing…

And of course, _of course_ , Ventus didn’t tell him. Because he didn’t want Vanitas to _worry_.

Vanitas begins to laugh, loud and unhinged in the mostly-empty dining hall. They had been getting looks ever since Aqua opened her mouth, but the other students stare freely now. Aqua screams her frustration but Vanitas can’t stop laughing.

( _Everything the bastard ever said was right, wasn’t it? About Vanitas, and about this awful world he was born into._ )

“Why are you suck a freak!?” Aqua screams. “Is this some big joke to you? Do you think it’s _funny_? You’ll suffocate him, Vanitas! You’ll suffocate him and then laugh about it, just like you’re laughing now! Just like-” and she doesn’t finish her sentence, fuming in silence, because they both know that if she says the thoughts that just came to her, there would never be any going back. Some words do too much damage to ever forgive.

But she isn’t entirely wrong. Out of her fucking depths, sure, but not wrong. That’s exactly what Vanitas is doing to Ventus, suffocating him and letting him fall on his own sword like the perfect hero he is. For what? A hug when he’s sad?

He’s heard enough, the twisted laughter from before turning his tongue thick and useless. Poison feels ready to drip out of him and cover himself, cover the table, cover her the same way it’s already covered Ventus _ball and chain-_

-Vanitas gets up and leaves without another word. He doesn’t go home. He doesn’t go to campus.

No, he goes to _Covel fucking Commons_ , which is a building useful for the dining hall Ventus doesn’t like at the bottom and study spaces during finals week and absolutely nothing else. He finds the stairwell tucked into the side of the building that no one but the custodians use and sits at the very fucking top. It’s one of the few places of relative privacy he can find on this cramped campus. It’s hard to be alone on 419 acres packed with 30,000 people at any given moment.

But it’s incredibly easy to feel alone.

Terra tries to help. He really does. His texts light up Vanitas’s phone during that endless stretch of hours where Vanitas loses himself in that stairwell. For some reason, Vanitas texts him back. Not enough information to actually be helpful, but enough that Terra finds him with enough persistence.

The stairs are just wide enough for two people to sit side-by-side, even if one of them is as much of a brick wall as Terra is. He gently moves Vanitas’s backpack out of the way and shifts his ridiculously long limbs into a sitting position, crouching on the steps like his legs couldn’t cover three of them at once.

He makes Vanitas feel small and insignificant, like the worms that eat the tomatoes that Ventus’s father still grows to this day.

After what feels like an eternity of staring out the window in front of them and watching students scurry in and out of the cafe (the same one Ventus gets sandwiches from all the time) across the plaza, Terra speaks. “Aqua’s just worried about Ven. He… really isn’t doing well.”

Someone else sees it, too. Terra doesn’t hate Vanitas, hasn’t for a few years, and even unclouded by disdain he can see the ball and chain. “What, here to clean up her mess?” Vanitas asks.

Chuckling, Terra nods. “You could say that. She didn’t tell me what happened, but she’s always been fierce. She’d do anything to protect the people she loves.”

Vanitas remembers that trait well. In his mind’s eye is Aqua, fifteen and blazing with cold fury, arguing with anyone and everyone who tried to slander Terra’s name. Always ready to throw herself in an attacker’s way if it meant protecting someone she loved.

Vanitas is that enemy now.

But Terra’s always been better at befriending the villain than her.

“Terra.”

“Yeah?”

“She said Ventus skipped a midterm for me. Is… is that true?”

Sighing, Terra nods. “You didn’t know?”

“Do you really think I would have let him come over if I did!?” Vanitas snarls, voice echoing in the empty stairwell, dripping his own poison back onto him.

“Whoa, Vanitas! It’s okay. I’m not accusing you of anything,” Terra says, hands up like he’s trying to calm a wild animal. If Terra thinks that he’s Androcles attempting to console the wounded lion, then he’s dead wrong. The foam around his mouth isn’t due to a thorn stuck in his paw. Leave it to Terra to be too stupid to realize that.

“Do you remember high school? When you and I first talked again?” Terra asks.

Slowly, Vanitas nods.

“Back then… Aqua lit my way back home, but she could never be my only light. Ven, Mister Eraqus, my parents, all our other friends - I fought so hard to change so I could become someone they _all_ could be proud of. I needed a lot of help when I got out of juvie. Did you know I stopped judo practice so I could go to therapy instead?”

“How could I know? You never talked about it.”

Terra smiles, but there’s no joy in the expression. “I was ashamed. The whole event - the robbery, the manipulation, everything that happened after - messed me up pretty badly. It’s been almost a decade, and sometimes I wonder if I’ve fully healed yet.”

“Great sob story, Terra. What does that have to do with me?” Vanitas asks, his throat tight. He can hear the implication there. Terra had one shitty thing happen to him as a kid that left him limping around with pieces of his soul sloughing off himself. How much more broken is Vanitas? How much more of himself has been lost to that void, never to return?

He’s been forcing himself to be okay for so long, but deep down, he’s everything but.

“I guess… I think it’d be good for you to reach out to more people besides Ven. Aqua may be mad right now, but she’ll come around. I’d be happy to help you, too.”

Terra’s hand claps his shoulder and the movement is so sudden that Vanitas slaps his hand away before he’s even registered what just happened. The sound of the slap echoes in the air and Vanitas watches, horrified, as Terra’s hand turns an angry red.

Wincing, he clutches it close to his chest. “Vanitas! That really hurt! What was that for!?”

He’ll drag anyone down who gets too close, it seems.

Scrambling to his feet, Vanitas grabs his backpack. He takes the stairs down three at a time, darts into the bathroom on the first floor, and heaves up what little of the omelet he managed to choke down for breakfast.

( _He won’t see Terra for months after that._ )

And then there is Kairi. He runs into her - very literally and very physically - on campus the next day. Vanitas’s mind is lost somewhere in the sky, drifting among stars he can’t see, and she’s too absorbed in her phone to look up and watch where she’s going.

He hasn’t practiced judo in years, but those lessons are so deeply ingrained in him that his first instinct is to grab the arm attached to the shoulder that hit his and flip them onto the fucking concrete. His hand grips this person’s forearm like an iron shackle clasping shut around a prisoner, punishment fitting the crime-

-And he sees a girl’s face frozen in shock. Her doppelgänger, cheeks painted blue and gold and radiating joy, smiles down at him from the row of banners that line Bruinwalk behind her.

“Sorry!” she squeaks out. His grip is so tight that she couldn’t break it, even if she tried. “I didn’t see you there, Vanitas!”

Scowling, he lets her go. “Watch where you’re going next time.”

She puffs her cheeks out. “You could say the same…”

They barely know each other, only tenuously connected from the few interactions they’ve had where Vanitas followed Ventus through his dorm’s floor and ran into her entirely on accident. Vanitas only recently connected the fact that the volleyball player Ventus told him about is the same girl who will block his path back to Ventus’s dorm from the bathroom to demand him to say his major.

Right now, that doesn’t really matter. What matters, and what makes seeing her painful, is how she only makes him think of Ventus. “Whatever,” he says, brushing past her. He has a busy afternoon planned, full of homework, letting random Netflix documentaries autoplay in the background, and trying his hardest not to be nauseous.

“Wait!” Kairi says, darting in front of him. He stops himself at the last moment from accidentally stepping on her foot, then stops himself again from doing it on purpose. “I want to ask you something.”

He doesn’t know why he stops. He really doesn’t. “What.”

“Do you have other friends besides Ven? Anyone else you can talk to about what’s going on?” she asks.

Again? Really? “And people say _I’m_ rude. Or, to translate that in a way you might understand - what the _fuck_ , Kairi, is that question?”

“I mean, it probably isn’t my place,” she says, ignoring how Vanitas rolls his eyes because she couldn’t be more right, “But I’m worried! About Ven, and about you, too. I don’t think you’re as okay as you try to be.”

“What does it matter to you? You don’t know me,” Vanitas snaps at her. She doesn’t back down, not even after he gives her his nastiest look.

“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to!” Kairi snaps back.

She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. It’s just another sad offer of consolation done out of pity. She’s saying it because she’s a good person and because she cares about Ventus too much to let Vanitas keep dragging him down, just like Aqua and Terra. She could never genuinely care about him. “Spare me the pity. I’m not interested.”

“See, that’s what I’m talking about!” she gestures at him, but after apparently thinking better of it, she rolls her shoulders and sighs. “Anyone who looks at you and Ven can tell how much you care about each other. I only met him this year and even I can tell that much. But don’t you think your world should be bigger than only him?”

“Get out of my way.” Vanitas says, his voice as cold to his ears as he feels. His hands clench at his sides, icy anger freezing his blood. He’s not having this conversation for a third time.

“No one should have to go through what you’re going through on their own, but I don’t think Ven can handle it all, either. Our worlds are too big for just one person to fill, Vanitas. People want to be there for you, but you have to let them,” she says, pleading. He doesn’t know what she’s pleading for - all he hears is what yet again confirms his fears. Those words sound off in his ears like a record on repeat.

_Ven can’t handle it all, either._

Even _Kairi_ can see how Vanitas is ruining him, and her view is unclouded by the past the way Aqua and Terra’s views are. She didn’t start out hating him, but she doesn’t even need to know Vanitas to know exactly what he is.

He’ll do whatever it takes to keep that ball and chain from dragging Ventus down into the depths.

It’ll hurt both of them, but Ventus is strong. He’ll recover easily.

It’s the only way.

Resolve settled deep within him, metal cooling to steely acceptance in his spine, he pushes past Kairi and continues his walk back to his apartment. On the way, he pulls out his phone and texts Ventus for the first time in days.

_We need to talk._

One last time.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we broke 200 kudos!!!! aaah thank you so much!!!
> 
> writing cliffhangers in this fic is interesting because i personally don't see them as all that intense? because we already know EXACTLY how that is going to end. you may not know the details, but i think the overall trajectory is a given. so now it's obviously the perfect time for something completely different!!! 
> 
> this is an interlude chapter of sorts, set in ven's pov. which is especially fun, because we're seeing something that we haven't seen from vanitas's pov yet. vanitas isn't the only one who gets to spout off complex metaphors! mostly, i really wanted to provide a perspective on vanitas that isn't given from vanitas himself. he's not the most reliable narrator.
> 
> i have one more piece set in ven's pov set near/at the end of the fic, though i'm still unsure if that will be posted or not. maybe! who knows!

_a._

Ven has always loved the night. There’s a peace to be found there that the day can never provide. He’s never felt more alive than he has during those cool summer nights when his family would take trips out to the mountains and camp, letting the stars serve as the greatest blanket they could ever ask for.

It’s a little harder to see the stars here, but he can still make out enough of them to justify dragging Vanitas up to the roof to stargaze. His parents would absolutely murder him if they found out what he was doing. Good thing they can’t see the back of the roof from the driveway!

He lets Vanitas know that fact as he joins him on the blanket they’ve set out. Turns out roof tiles aren’t very comfortable to lay on. “My parents would kill me if they knew I was up here, let alone with a guest.”

“Wow, the goody-two-shoes is flirting with danger?” Vanitas quips. It’s hard to see each other’s expressions in the dim light, but Ven hopes that Vanitas can see the roll of his eyes.

“It’s not dangerous if you’re not dumb about it. Besides, it’s easier to stargaze up here than it is from my window.” Also, as much as Ven wants to show his room off to Vanitas, there are definitely dirty boxers on the floor that he didn’t clean up before Vanitas came over. There’s no way he’s letting Vanitas make fun of him for that.

He really should have listened to his mom when she told him to clean his room the first time. Whoops.

Vanitas is a weird guy. He always has been. Ven’s known him for years and never once has he seen him in clothes that actually fit him or aren’t falling apart. His default expression is a few steps short of a scowl. His default reaction to any question is to get defensive. He’ll stop replying in the middle of a conversation for absolutely no reason, just like he’s doing right now.

But he’s also insanely determined when he actually cares about something. He’s more disciplined than Ven could ever be. He’s capable of being thoughtful and kind, even if he’d deny it. And he’s strong enough to survive whatever it is he has to go home to every day. Ven doesn’t know much about his home life, even now; just enough to know that it’s bad.

Just enough to not want anything to do with Xehanort. Ever.

Vanitas still hasn’t spoken, though at least he’s followed Ven’s lead and settled down on the blanket as well. That’s okay. He thinks Vanitas might be looking at the stars (finally!). With him settled, Ven figures now’s a good of time as any to speak. “They’re kind of hard to see, aren’t they? It used to be hard for me, too. Got easier once I got contacts.”

Vanitas frowns. He’s definitely looking at the stars now. “...How can you tell the difference between stars and satellites?”

Huh. Ven’s never had to wonder about that. For him, the difference comes easily. Stars make sense. He’s studied enough charts to make a map out of the night sky, constellations serving as the lighthouse that could always bring his ship back home. Satellites and airplanes are nothing more than the specks of dust that blow across his map. He could never mistake them for the real thing.

“Satellites move through the sky, since they orbit the Earth. Stars don’t. Oh, and if you see it blink green and red? Probably an airplane,” Ven explains.

He hears Vanitas shift besides him. “I still don’t get it. Staring up at the sky seems like a waste of time. Why bother? It’s not like we’ll ever be able to go there.”

Vanitas likes tangible things. Ven’s never asked him why, but he thinks it’s because those things feel the most real to him. For all he’d deny it, he’s a tactile person. Things that he can feel with his own fingers ground him. It’s part of the reason why Ven wanted him to get a dog. Vanitas needs something in his life that he can’t doubt, and it’s pretty much impossible to doubt a dog’s love when it won’t stop licking your face and wagging it’s tail because you’re back.

Ven’s been his best friend for, what, six years now? Nearly seven. And still, there are days when Vanitas acts like he’s going to drop him and leave him in the dust. It hurts.

Vanitas glances at him, waiting for an answer. Ven’s pretty sure Vanitas isn’t aware of this, but sometimes his eyes glint in the darkness. Ven’s never seen anything like it, save for…

“That doesn’t stop them from being beautiful,” Ven says quietly. Intrigued, Vanitas rolls onto his side to face him. Ven lets his gaze shift between the glittering lights that hang overhead and the glinting light that watches him now.

Ven’s always had the uncanny ability to pick Vanitas out of a crowd. His head of black spikes isn’t entirely unique, but that, and the way he moves like he’s looking for a fight, the familiar growl of his voice when he speaks, and of course the glow of his eyes - all of it sets him apart from every other person in Ven’s life. He’s always been drawn towards Vanitas, even when he didn’t try to look.

He thinks he’s starting to figure out why.

Ven doesn’t try to hide his smile. Vanitas starts, blinking owlishly in the darkness. His eyes glint again, reflecting the starlight with ease.

The first time Ven saw it, it scared him. It reminded him too much of the time when he was eight and took out the trash late at night, only for an entire family of raccoons to cover his trashcan and stare at him with their glowing eyes. He was certain they’d attack him if he came any closer.

He feels no such fear anymore. Not of raccoons, and not of the night-sky boy looking at him now.

“And what are you smiling at?” Vanitas bites out.

“Your ugly face and your weird raccoon eyes,” Ven shoots back, laughing. Vanitas’s face falls back into a familiar scowl as he shoves Ven’s shoulder. That’s all it takes to get the two of them wrestling like morons on the roof, carelessly dangerous and carelessly laughing. His parents don’t need to see them to hear them causing a ruckus up here, but Ven buoys himself on the lightness in his chest and allows that to blind him to the rest of the world.

Ven’s too wrapped up in that feeling to notice the way he pushes Vanitas a little bit too hard. The boy goes tumbling down to the edge of the roof and Ven freezes in place, panic filling his bones. He scrambles down after Vanitas, terrified of his hysterical laughter. Vanitas doesn’t show his pain easily. Ven hopes with all his heart that he isn’t hurt. He’ll punch himself in the face for being a moron if he is.

Vanitas clings to the edge of the roof, laughing so hard that he sounds like he’ll choke up a lung any second. He drops to the ground with a loud thud and Ven is quick to clamber after him. Vanitas clutches his stomach, wheezing, ignorant to Ven’s frantic movements around him.

It hits him then, that Vanitas is perfectly fine. Ven groans and pushes him again. “I hope you do cough up your lung! That’s what you get for worrying me like that, you big idiot!”

But Vanitas keeps laughing without a care in the world, and not long after Ven’s worry subsides does he find himself caught up in his laughter. Vanitas laughs like he doesn’t know what to do with the sound. Ven’s always thought that was funny.

Something strikes him, then.

He’d be pretty happy if he could spend the rest of his life like this. He doesn’t want Vanitas to have to go home.

No, he wants to come home and find Vanitas there.

The rest of Ven’s life stretches out in front of him in an endless road, but he’d be happy to let his feet fall against the asphalt and let the star shining in front of him guide his way.

Ven’s parents come home a few minutes later. Ven follows Vanitas in a daze, barely registering the change when he finds himself in the backseat of his dad’s car. His parents chatter in the front, but all Ven can focus on is the boy sitting next to him.

Vanitas isn’t the scrawny kid he once was. He’s grown into himself in the past year. His shoulders are broader than they used to be, the muscles of his arms more defined. He says it’s from a summer of having to carry big dogs that refused to move, but Ven has found himself thinking more than once that he hopes Vanitas will do something to keep that definition.

He’s also found himself thinking more than once that he wishes Vanitas was in his P.E. class, so he’d finally get to see whether or not he has nice abs. Ven’s usually pretty good at squashing that thought down the moment it rears its annoying head. He’s never been able to face its implications before now.

His best friend is cute. Really cute.

And Ven has something that feels too big to be called a crush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my betas, after reading this chapter: ven wants to touch the stars but the stars are just vanitas's abs


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fires, they went on forever, like flaming jewels along the shore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another short chapter! this one is one of my absolute favorites. 
> 
> this chapter makes me feel the way [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtT3hPKAWcQ) does. give it a listen if you're so inclined - i think it fits with this chapter well!

iii.

During one of their weekly meetings, Kairi snatches Vanitas’s backpack from its resting spot against the leg of the metal table they sit at for absolutely no reason. Vanitas starts to protest, but she flip the black canvas around until a small charm rests in her hand. A small blue wave hangs from one of the zippers, the gold border surrounding the charm glinting in the late April sunlight. “How’d you get this?” Kairi demands, every bit the terrifying sea creature from below the depths that Vanitas is now convinced she was in her past life.

“My friend made it for me. What, do you think I stole it or something?” Vanitas snaps, using her momentary pause as she gasps to take his backpack back.

“No, of course not! It’s just…” she huffs and digs her phone out of her pocket. She’s the type of person to leave at least ten different charms dangling from her phone at all times, making the fact that she can put it in her pocket nothing short of a miracle. Her fingers weave between the charms, pulling one specific charm out of the mess to show Vanitas.

It’s the same exact charm that hangs from his backpack.

“My friend from high school goes here. She’s like, the most amazing artist I’ve ever met in my life. Her Etsy? Amazing! But she only make a couple of these charms to test how they’d look. So if you have one, then…”

“Oh my fucking god. Kairi, don’t you dare finish that sentence-”

“-You’re the new friend Naminé’s been talking about! Oh my god, I should have figured this out earlier!” She slaps her forehead, laughing as Vanitas slams his head into his backpack and groans.

Vanitas is furious that this keeps happening. Even in a school as massive as this one, leave it to his shitty luck to make everyone’s lives keep connecting in these stupid ways. Naminé literally had one friend before coming to college, and that same friend is the plane of glass that allows him to maintain some tenuous connection to Ventus.

Except Kairi hasn’t been content with being that pane of glass for a while. She’s broken herself free of the stones they’ve built, scaling either side of their barriers with ease.

When he texts Naminé after he and Kairi have parted ways and he had to endure way too many jokes about how they’re now charms for his sanity, all she replies with is: _Oh, I didn’t know you knew Kairi!_

 _And I didn’t know she knew you_.

Kairi is entirely the reason why Vanitas finds himself where he is now, lugging a crate of firewood across the beach as the culprit in question and Xion roll around with his dogs in the sand like a pair of dumbass toddlers. The sun hovers over the sea, just high enough to cast a ray of light sparking against the cresting waves. The sky is clear, the blue above giving way to a vivid orange.

The biggest reason why anyone comes to Dockweiler Beach is for the free fire pits that anyone can build a bonfire in. Luckily for them, Roxas sprinted towards an empty pit the moment they all piled out of Vanitas’s car and has been standing watch over it ever since. Naminé sits by his side as she unloads a tote bag (a light blue and covered in bruins, which bleeds enough school spirit that it can only belong to Xion) on the raised stone surrounding the pit.

Vanitas has never been to this beach before now. He’s never felt the need to start a bonfire; neither has Ventus. It feels strange to walk on these sands. Geographically, they’re only a few miles from the beaches that Vanitas usually haunts, but even then, the way his steps sink into the soft ivory grain feels different.

Maybe he’s just unused to the sensation, having gone without it for so long.

Strange as it may be, that doesn’t make it feel wrong. Just different.

He takes a deep breath, letting the salty smell of the ocean flood over him and relax his tense muscles. No matter where he goes, that will always stay the same.

Vanitas gets to the pit and dumps the wood on the sand nearby. There are already five chairs (and a towel laid out for the dogs) set up around the circle, all paying tribute to the chocolate bars, bag of marshmallows, and box of graham crackers waiting to be assembled into s’mores. Roxas strums idly on a guitar, plucking at the strings and tuning them until they apparently sound right.

Vanitas doesn’t know enough about guitar to determine if Roxas is doing it correctly. Instead he settles into one of the chairs, feeling less like a college student and more like a middle aged man going on a fishing trip just by sitting in this mesh monstrosity. Apparently, Roxas and Xion are borrowing them from Axel for the night. Vanitas doesn’t want to know why Axel had five of these just laying around.

“You play guitar,” Vanitas observes. “Why am I not surprised.”

“I taught myself in high school,” Roxas explains. “I like learning songs.”

“Did you learn any that Kairi would know?” Naminé asks, pulling out a set of wooden skewers and setting them near the fire pit.

Roxas snickers. “No.”

“Well, she has her phone to look up lyrics. I think she’ll be fine.”

“Better question - did you learn any songs that any of us besides you would know?” Vanitas counters. Roxas shoots him an unimpressed look and begins playing the introduction to a song Vanitas instantly recognizes as one he heard at the concert they went to. It’s strange to think how long ago that feels.

“Fine, fine. You win, Roxas. Happy?”

Snickering, Roxas moves into another chair as Kairi and Xion finally join their group, clothes mussed and covered in sand, but wearing matching smiles. Kairi shakes her head like a dog, sending sand everywhere and eliciting complaints from everyone but Xion. Void and Gear, who are looking much less sandy than the girls, appear behind them and take it upon themselves to sniff the s’mores supplies. Vanitas clicks his tongue at them and points to the towel, where they both lay down.

Kairi watches him with rapt fascination. “How did you do that?” she asks.

“That’s the stupidest question I’ve ever heard. What you think I _do?”_

“Drink too much coffee and complain about your classes,” Kairi shoots back, plopping into the chair at his side. She moves closer to him, finger resting against her thumb like she’s ready to flick his forehead, but he shoves her hand away with a scowl before she can.

“You haven’t seen his Instagram? He trains dogs,” Xion supplies, reminding Vanitas why she’s the best person out of this group.

“I know that, silly!” Kairi says, rolling her eyes. “It’s just,” she pauses, humming, “I expected him to say something at least.”

“They recognize sounds and inflections, not specific words,” Vanitas says.

“Plus, they’re really smart,” Xion adds, forever solidifying her status as the best. Rather than taking the last empty seat, she kneels on the edge of the towel so she can scratch Gear’s belly. She’s spoiling them rotten, but Vanitas can’t bring himself to tell her to stop. It doesn’t help that he spots Naminé watching her girlfriend with such a gentle warmth that it’d feel like he was betraying both of them.

Unfortunately, not a single one of them has experience starting a fire.

“It says here we need kindling,” Naminé says, clearly reading off her phone. “Twigs, small sticks, leaves… I think we’re supposed to use those. Anything small that burns easily.”

Kairi mimics pushing Roxas into the fire pit, earning a laugh from almost everyone in the circle. The exceptions are Roxas, who directs all his energy into glaring at Kairi, and Naminé, who is still too concerned with her phone to notice.

“I have napkins in my car,” Vanitas says. “Think that would work?”

“It also mentions using newspaper, so I think so. Roxas, Kairi, could you start putting the wood in?”

Kairi rips the plastic bundling the wood together away and starts tossing logs into the pit. Roxas gets over himself long enough to start helping her, though they slow at the sound of Naminé’s sigh. “No,” she says softly, “that’s not right…”

Vanitas gets to his feet, but he notices Xion scrambling to hers as well. “I’ll go with you!” she says happily, falling into step at his side as he leaves. She’s more awkward on the sand than he is, her steps uneven and heavy. The sight makes Vanitas snort, but he slows his pace so she can keep up.

“Are you having fun, Vanitas? You didn’t look very happy when we first got here,” Xion says softly, hands clasped in front of her.

He doesn’t have to talk to her about it, and he knows it. She’ll drop it if he wants her to.

But hell. She’s his friend, and they still have a couple minutes of relative privacy walking along the shore before they reach his car. Besides, he thinks he might trust her. “Being by the beach is,” he hesitates, searching for a good enough word, “hard, for me.”

( _When he was eighteen and had nowhere to go, the only siren song he could hear came from the sea. He followed it here, to shores nearly identical to these, but you can’t lead a soul to its death when your music leads it out of hell._

 _No, he knows better now. What the ocean gave him was his first taste of home._ )

“You’ve lived here for a while, right? You must have a lot of memories of this place.”

She’s not wrong. Even when he had nothing but a stolen car parked by the sand and a dog asleep in the backseat to his name, he had the tides to whisper him lullabies. He could let Void, barely more than a puppy in those days, stretch her legs and chase seagulls on the sand for as long as she wanted.

And when things changed for the better, when he found a roof to sleep under and a hot plate to cook meals on, he still had the water.

But that isn’t what’s kept him from coming here. “Makes me think of Ventus, is all. I came to the beach without him all the time, but it’s weird coming here when he and I aren’t talking.”

He’s given her enough of the story, bits and pieces spread across countless conversations, that he doesn’t need to explain any further. She nods, processing this new piece of information for herself. “Can I ask you something?”

“You already are, but sure.”

Xion’s voice grows soft, gentle. Like she’s ready to comfort him if he needs it. “Do you love him?”

Not _did_ _you_. _Do you_.

She’s too smart to ask in the past tense.

And he doesn’t particularly feel the need to lie to either of them. “He’s the first person I ever loved. Nothing can change that.”

But he’s not the only person Vanitas loves.

That knowledge doesn’t come as a shock. It doesn’t freeze him in place. It crept up on him without his realization, blending into his life effortlessly. It’s like the sun settling to sleep below the waves, the way twilight always greets the night sky with such compassion.

It’s Xion, with the rays of soft evening light turning her black hair red, warmly guiding him home with her simple acceptance.

He loves her, too. What he holds for Ventus is reserved for him and him only, but this is love all the same.

“Hey, Xion?”

“Yes?”

They reach his car. Vanitas unlocks the doors, ducking inside and grabbing the bundle of napkins he keeps in his center console. When he closes the door behind him, he deposits the napkins in Xion’s waiting hands. “I think you’re my best friend.”

It’s less terrifying to say than he thought it would be. She has so many other people in her life, but maybe he doesn’t have to fight for a space in her heart.

“Well, Vanitas. I think you’re my best friend too,” Xion says with a soft laugh. “Now let’s go help our other friends start this fire.”

Maybe he already has a space there. One that’s all his own.

He wouldn’t be here without her. He would have never allowed any of this without her. With time, maybe the others could become his best friends too.

It’s a nice thought, one that doesn’t feel as impossible as he was afraid it might have.

When they get back, the others have arranged the logs in the shape of a cone, all leaning against one another for support. Naminé is the first to spot them, raising from her chair and taking their newfound kindling from her girlfriend’s hands. They exchange a soft look and Naminé squeezes Xion’s hand briefly before setting the napkins inside the pit. Every movement of hers, even something as simple as throwing paper into a pit, is done with an extreme level of care.

Roxas lights a match and places it in the pit, watching as the tiny flame happily crawls over the crinkled paper. He and Naminé lean over the edge and gently fan the burgeoning flame. The sun is halfway swallowed by the sea at this point, and while LA as a whole has forgotten what true darkness looks like, it’s dim enough that their grins are illuminated when the fire finally catches onto the logs. Crackles and pops fill the air, serving as a steady undercurrent to Roxas’s cheer. “We did it!”

Naminé smiles and claps softly, though she yelps when Kairi loops her arms around her and squeezes. “You’re amazing, Naminoodle!”

“Wait, what did you call her?” Vanitas asks, leaning towards them with a grin. Naminé’s the kind of pale that any sort of red, whether from a sunburn or from embarrassment, paints itself in vivid colors across her skin. Considering the amount of sunblock she slathered on during the drive over, the blush on her face is entirely due to that nickname. Oh, he is _not_ going to forget this one.

“Kairi, please don’t…” Naminé warns, sounding more exhausted than he’s ever heard her before. This can’t be a new conversation, then.

Kairi doesn’t pay any mind to the warning, the weird sea-creature that she is. “It’s her nickname! When did I give it to you, Nami? Tenth grade?”

Naminé’s only response is to hide her face in her hands and whine. Both dogs look up at the sound, ears perked like they’re looking for another mutt.

“No one’s taking your territory, calm down,” Vanitas tells them, waving his hand dismissively. Void and Gear both look at him, glance around once more, and set their heads back down.

Meanwhile, Roxas and Xion both snicker as Kairi clings to Naminé. “Come oooooon,” Kairi sings, forcing the other girl to follow her movements as she sways, “You liked that nickname enough to make it your Twitter handle! You can’t fool me.”

“That’s supposed to be a secret,” Naminé says, voice muffled by her hands. “It’s locked for a reason.”

Still grinning, Kairi raises herself onto her tiptoes and rests her chin on top of Naminé’s head. “She’s just embarrassed because her _girlfriend’s_ here, and she wants to be _cool_.”

Naminé whines again, but before Kairi can keep terrorizing her friend, Xion speaks up. “I think it’s cute, Naminé,” she offers helpfully, showing time and time again why she’s the least terrible of their ragtag group of idiots.

And Vanitas includes himself in said group, which… feels pretty nice, actually. He stays back, content to watch it unfold. It’s so different from the days of high school, sitting on the planter with Ventus and his friends. There, he orbited a world he felt like he could never enter.

Now, this _is_ his world. He isn’t a sojourner in a strange land, not here. He’s just another part of the group.

Naminé breaks out of Kairi’s octopus hold and skirts around the edge of the circle, breezing past Vanitas until she’s standing in front of her girlfriend. Her face is still red, halfway illuminated by the light of the fire behind her, gentle shadows playing over her cheekbones. “Really?” she asks quietly.

Xion nods. “It’s kind of like your Instagram handle, right? They go together. I like it.” She reaches out and takes Naminé’s hand in her own, shifting their fingers until they’re laced together. The moment they share is quietly intimate.

It feels familiar, even if he’s only an observer in this case.

Roxas heaves out an immense sigh and turns away, but Vanitas has seen him do it enough times to know it’s so he can hide his smile. “So sappy,” he says fondly.

Sensing an opportunity, Vanitas darts past the girls and claps Roxas’s shoulder. “Feel your teeth rotting out yet?”

“Do you feel your cold, dead heart coming back to life yet?” Roxas shoots back.

Vanitas glances over his shoulder back at the girls, both stuttering but still unwilling to break apart. They stay together even as Kairi tries to badger them into kissing each other.

“Yeah. I think I do,” Vanitas says.

Vanitas doesn’t see it happen, but given the way Kairi finally settles the fuck down, he’s guessing that she did get them to kiss.

The sun finally sets below the waves, but it’s still far from dark. Lights just like the one they sit around line the shore, an endless stream of flaming jewels. The heat keeps away the chill that comes from the ocean air, leaving them all comfortable even in sweatshirts and shorts they all wore here. Xion makes sure to get the other chair by the dogs and Vanitas tosses her a small bag of carrots to feed them. He knows that she’d be desperate to feed them something, but even with the toxin-free marshmallows he made sure Naminé bought, that much sugar isn’t good for them.

Roxas tosses another log into the fire and the girls all gasp in delight as the flame curls over the wood and dances in the night air. Kairi and Xion both shove their skewered marshmallows into the flame, letting the fluffy white sugar blacken to a crisp. Naminé and Roxas hold their sugary treats further away from the flame, rotating it until its a golden brown all around.

Vanitas burns one half of his, gives up, and shoves it into a s’more anyways. He quickly discovers he doesn’t like s’mores. It confirms his previous theory: that marshmallows are only good when melted into cups of hot chocolate.

He settles for snatching an entire chocolate bar and keeping it for himself. Roxas shoots him a nasty glare and shouts something about how _That’s supposed to be for everyone!_ Vanitas responds by breaking the remaining bar in half and shoving it into his mouth as obnoxiously as possible.

Roxas is being dramatic. There’s a whole other bar no one has even _touched_ yet. So what if Vanitas claims one for himself?

When Roxas has had his fill of sugar, he wipes his hands off on a napkin that somehow escaped a fate of being kindling for the fire and pulls his guitar into his lap. He runs his thumb along the strings experimentally, letting a clear sound escape into the night air. Satisfied, he begins to strum in earnest, voice rising above the crashing waves in a melody that it takes a few beats for Vanitas to recognize.

As he quickly learns, Roxas is a great singer.

( _Not half as great as Ventus, though. He doesn’t like singing around other people, not even Vanitas. Not Terra and Aqua, either. Still, Vanitas grabs hold of those precious memories of the early mornings when a sweet melody would drift through the space of his apartment, words slipping out of Ventus freely while he thinks that Vanitas is still in the bathroom and can’t hear him._ )

Xion knows the words to every single song Roxas plays and she happily sings along. Naminé knows fewer songs, but she’s so enraptured by Xion that it’s a miracle that she can even sing to the ones she does know. Kairi, true to Naminé’s earlier prediction, doesn’t know a single one. That doesn’t stop her from pulling out her phone and following along with the lyrics, usually a beat too late and a note too high.

Vanitas hums under his breath to the ones he knows, and taps his fingers against the mesh of his chair to the ones he doesn’t.

Their voices mingle like an offering to the sea’s steady metronome, and to the audience of stars they can’t see overhead.

It’s fun.

Really, truly fun.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO THIS FIC RECEIVED THE MOST AMAZING FANART! you can look at it [here!](https://twitter.com/ventuslatte/status/1119140216030105600) it is fantastic and i love it so dearly!!! i've reread it probably 30 times, no joke. it captures that scene SO PERFECTLY!!! i'm so happy every time i think of it. it's also ESPECIALLY perfect because in this chapter, you get to see that same scene from vanitas's perspective!
> 
> also some other stuff happens too i guess >:3c

ii.

Across the street from Vanitas’s apartment is a graveyard. One block north of that is a rolling network of homes - small, unassuming, each one worth more than Vanitas will probably ever make in his lifetime. He’s heard rumors that the school owns most of the land that stretches out to the freeway and leases property to distinguished faculty, but he isn’t sure what to believe.

What he can believe is this: that the apartments with ten people stuffed across four bedrooms can be smaller than a house meant for two, yet have a total monthly rent the same price as the mortgage across the street.

Vanitas thinks about this as he stares at the row of houses on the other side of the road. People speed down this road the same way they speed across all of LA whenever given the chance. He isn’t stupid enough to jaywalk, especially not when it’s this dark outside. This intersection may be well-lit from the street lamps and lights from the apartments behind him, but the darkness is heavier on the other side of the stoplight.

Footsteps fall on the concrete behind Vanitas, but he doesn’t need to look back to know who it is. Ventus is at his side moments later, looking ready to pass out where he stands. There’s just enough of him left to look solemn.

Vanitas is why his light flickers the way it does now, on the edge of collapse. He wishes he could rip himself apart and give over whatever shards of goodness are left within him to Ventus, leave him with something other than this pain.

“This won’t be a good talk,” Ventus says. He doesn’t need to ask.

The light changes from red to green and they cross the street. Vanitas takes Void and Gear over here sometimes, whenever he doesn’t have the patience to deal with college kids cooing at his dogs and asking to pet them, but he rarely does when it gets this dark. Too many things could be lurking in the shadows that he can’t see. Squirrels, cats, opossums; things he doesn’t want them to chase.

Now, he couldn’t give less of a shit what watches them walk by from the bushes. They start up a steep hill, careful to step over the branches that split the sidewalk in two. He only sees Ventus’s face in dim profile. Enough to see his resigned frown and the shadow from the bags under his eye.

They reach another intersection, though this one is only marked by stop signs. They still haven’t said anything useful.

Vanitas doesn’t want to do this. God, he really doesn’t want to do this. But one glance at Ventus is all he needs to know that he has to. He has to save Ventus from himself. “This isn’t working,” he eventually gets out, poison dripping down his lips.

Ventus just looks confused, scrunching his face up like he’s trying to decipher a strange painting. “What isn’t working?”

Vanitas groans. Already this is harder than it needs to be. “Do I really have to spell it out for you? This whole… _whatever_ is going on between us. The needy shit.”

Even as much of a zombie as Ventus currently is, that’s enough to ignite some tiny spark of protest within him. “What? Vanitas, stop that! You’re not being needy. Heck, I wish you were needier! I’m sick of you acting like you can shoulder everything yourself!”

_Our worlds are too big for just one person to fill_ , Kairi’s ghost whispers from behind Ventus, twirling in the empty road. They keep walking, passing right by his mental image of her.

Strange, that the girl who has the least reason to flay him alive is the one whose words impact him the strongest. More than Aqua; more than Terra.

_Ven can’t handle it all,_ she whispers as they pass by, disappearing into the cold night air.

Ventus is too frail, too small, too precious for Vanitas to keep breaking. “And you can, Ventus?” Vanitas shoots back. “How many more midterms do you plan on skipping for my sake?”

Ball and chain.

Ventus freezes.

“Don’t you dare lie to me, Ventus. I know.”

“...I was going to fail anyways,” Ventus defends weakly.

“Bullshit.”

“I suck at organic chemistry. You know that.”

Vanitas keeps walking and Ventus follows after him, working themselves deeper and deeper into the neighborhood. The houses blend together, their white walls and cheerful red trims illuminated by tiny porch lamps and nothing else. They remain blanketed by the closest color to darkness this city of light can offer. “Yeah, but you’re not taking all ochem this quarter. You’re _good_ at biology. You’re good at labs. How many more classes are you going to walk out of and not tell me about?” Vanitas pauses, something else occurring to him. “How many times have you already done that?”

Ventus’s silence is all the answer he needs.

That resolve from before is still in his spine, freezing his emotions. He’s numb, numb to himself and numb to the guilt leaking out of the boy next to him. He’s never seen the sunlight so dim. “Ventus. We need a break.”

_I can’t keep doing this to you._

“A break? But we’re not…”

“I mean we can’t talk to each other anymore. No seeing each other. No texting. No contact,” Vanitas finishes for him. Ventus looks ready to protest, but Vanitas won’t give him the chance. “Unless you want to look me in the eyes and tell me that what we’re doing is completely healthy and well-adjusted, I don’t want to hear it.”

Ventus can’t. Of course he can’t.

“There has to be some other way,” Ventus says, _pleads_. Even now, they continue to walk. Vanitas doesn’t know where they are anymore. “We can find you someone to talk to, I’ll go to tutoring, we can-”

“- _We_ ,” Vanitas stresses, “are going to live our lives separately. You can go off and salvage your GPA, and I’ll figure my own shit out.”

_I’ll save you from me._

Ventus isn’t happy, but they’ve been walking for what feels like forever at this point, and Vanitas can see how it wears on him. He’s so _tired_ , too tired to put up the fight he should be able to give. That’s only more proof that they have no other choice. “You shouldn’t go through this alone.”

Yeah, and drag Ventus down to hell in the process? Not an option. “I’ll be fine. Always am.”

Vanitas crosses the street, leading them back to what he’s pretty sure is the direction of the apartments. He can’t stand the thought of Ventus wandering this outdoor labyrinth alone. He seems slightly more resigned to the idea now. “How long are you thinking? Until the end of the quarter?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe longer.”

Another spark of what he used to be. Ventus whips his head towards Vanitas. “So what, Vanitas? I’m just supposed to forget you exist until what, the end of the year? Until I graduate? Until I’m in vet school and four-hundred miles away from you?”

“Until I stop being _obsessed with you!_ ” Vanitas shouts.

He vaguely remembers reading something like that in a romance novel as a kid, tearing through that stack of books the librarian never approved of him reading.

When he says it out loud, letting the words cloud together in the darkness, it doesn’t sound romantic at all.

One glance at Ventus is all he needs to know that he feels the same way. They’re truly a pair, always caught in a perfect lockstep.

That doesn’t make it _good_.

For most of the walk back, they’re silent. It’s not unusual for them to lapse into a comfortable quiet when together, but this one feels like knives across Vanitas’s skin. He’s certain Ventus feels the same.

This is the only way, though. Even if Ventus doesn’t agree, he can’t have a better idea. That’s why he’s stopped trying to fight it.

Eventually they make it back to the familiar sight of the apartments, though they stand at a different intersection from the one they entered in. There are two paths in front of them: one of concrete, leading back to Vanitas’s own apartment, and another of dirt, passing by the school’s logo emblazoned on a small stone wall and leading back to the dorms. They’ll take separate paths when they cross. It’s better that way.

But before the light turns and they cross, Vanitas has one last thing to say. “I want you to block me on everything. You can’t let me have any way to contact you.”

Ventus sighs, but Vanitas won’t relent. “Promise me, Ventus.”

“...You’ll have to block me too, you know.”

“I know.”

The light turns green. They cross. There aren’t any cars, so Vanitas takes the opportunity to cut across the middle of the street and stand on the other side of the road.

Ventus looks so small, so frail, standing on the other side of the street and watching him with those ocean eyes. The light from above is painfully white, washing him out more than it should.

This is what Vanitas has done to the sunlight boy he loves more than anything else. This is what he’s reduced him to.

Vanitas turns and leaves without another word. There’s nothing left to say, nothing that could make this easier.

Vanitas goes home and lays down in his bed, alone. His dogs are too busy napping on the couch to join him.

He’s too empty to feel anything at all.

Two days later, he goes back to the school’s counseling center and gets a referral for a therapist off-campus. Someone who can work with him long term. He spills his guts, gore and trauma and raw anger, all over Minnie’s carpet the week after.

And the week after that, a twilight girl sits in the seat across from his and asks for his phone number.

 

* * *

 

i.

Eraqus must win the argument he’s been having with Xehanort over the past seventy or so phone calls, because Vanitas gets the door one day and a home health nurse walks right into the bungalow.

He’s quiet, a little dopey, and apparently isn’t given nearly as many hours as he should have by the state insurance or whatever, but his presence means that Vanitas can linger a little longer than he used to before biking home after school.

Which is great, because Ventus always has to wait for his mom to come get him while she's on her lunch. With Aqua busy with marching band after school and Terra gone the moment the last bell rings, it gives Vanitas a few precious extra minutes to be relatively alone with Ventus.

He savors these moments, storing up the easygoing grins that Ventus gives them and pouring over them in his head when Xehanort’s lectures become nigh-unbearable. It’s easier to make it through the night when he knows that sunlight waits for him the next day.

If there’s one good thing about the nurse’s arrival, it’s that when an administrative error puts Vanitas in the same advanced English class as Ventus and when they choose each other as partners for a poetry project, Vanitas can badger the nurse into coming over on a Saturday so Vanitas can leave for once.

Which is how he finds himself in Ventus’s house, eating the strawberry yogurt his mom thrust in his hands when they started bickering too much to keep working. Ventus sits beside him, nibbling on a granola bar, but Vanitas’s attention is elsewhere.

There’s a portrait on the other side of the dining room, housed at the very top of a glass cabinet. It’s of Ventus and his family, all lounging on the beach with matching sunglasses and flashy smiles. Ventus is young in it, his cheeks much rounder than they are now. Vanitas squints, trying to figure out how old Ventus is in the picture, when it finally hits him. “That was the summer you went to Italy, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah! That was the last trip my brother came on with us before he graduated college. Did you ever meet him, Vanitas? He’s like, a decade older than me, so he wasn’t around a whole lot by the time you and I became friends.”

“Nope, never did.”

“I think you’d like him. He’s cool. Did I tell you he’s getting married? Jeez, I’m one of his groomsmen. I’m excited, but everyone else in the wedding party is his age. I’m gonna look like such a dork," Ventus babbles.

Vanitas’s limited knowledge of weddings, gathered exclusively from movies and books way out of his age range given how old he was when he got his hands on them, helpfully supplies him with the notion that Ventus will most likely be in a suit.

“I want to see the pictures of the wedding once it happens,” Vanitas blurts out. Feeling his face grow hot, he hastily adds, “To see how stupid you look next to a bunch of adults.”

Nailed it.

Scowling, Ventus swats at his arm. “Just for that, I’m never showing you!”

Vanitas twists to face the other boy. “No!”

“Then promise me you won’t be a jerk about it!” This is something Ventus won’t back down from, judging by the harsh look on his face.

Vanitas weighs his options. On one hand, this means he’ll have to give up good fodder for what he’s certain will be years of jokes at Ventus’s expense ( _and doesn’t it make him warm, the idea that they could have years together, not just the steadily dwindling months until graduation?_ ). It’ll be all the gleeful embarrassment of their middle school dance photos without the lingering shame that Vanitas gets from seeing himself in his own dorky middle school phase.

On the other hand, he’ll get to see Ventus all dressed up. In a _suit_.

“Fine. I promise.”

Ventus sticks his hand out. “Shake on it,” he demands.

They do.

Vanitas finishes his yogurt, Ventus finishes his granola bar, and they go back to work on the project. Ventus is a diligent partner, determined to _try his hardest_ or whatever corny saying he’s bought into today. He’s also intelligent, able to pick out motifs and symbols in their assigned poem that fly right over Vanitas’s head. He reprimands Vanitas multiple times for slacking off, but they finish the bulk of the work by the time the sun sinks below the horizon.

The clock’s hands practically drag across Vanitas’s skin like razors as it moves, reminding Vanitas that he’ll need to go home soon. A text from the nurse - that he’s leaving, but that he turned off Xehanort’s war documentary of the day and got him to properly go to sleep - reminds him that he can’t stay. If Xehanort wakes up and Vanitas isn’t there, there will be hell to pay.

“We can finish the rest individually, right? All we have to do is type up the report,” Vanitas says, starting to gather his things. He freezes when Ventus’s hand clasps around his wrist, shocking him into stillness.

“Do you have to go right now? I bet my parents would drive you home. It’s too dark to bike that far,” Ventus insists.

Vanitas rolls his eyes. “The last thing I’m afraid of is the dark.”

( _No, what he’s afraid of usually keeps at least one light on, even in the middle of the night._ )

“Still! They should be home soon. Just stay a little longer,” Ventus says. Vanitas shakes his hand free. “Please?”

Then he pins Vanitas in place with a _look_ that makes his breath hitch in his chest, and he finds himself nodding. Ventus practically shines at his response.

The next thing Vanitas knows, he has a fluffy blanket shoved in his arms and Ventus is leading him outside. Ventus drags over a wooden bench from the edge of his dad’s vegetable garden and uses it to boost himself onto the low-hanging roof just over his back porch. Vanitas’s curiosity and distrust have a brief battle in his mind. His curiosity wins out and he tosses Ventus the blanket before climbing up after him.

Ventus leads him further up on the roof; from this angle, he doubts that they’re visible from the driveway. Something tells Vanitas, with a curl of warmth, that this was meant to be intentional. Ventus spreads the blanket out and sits down, patting the space next to him in a clear invitation that Vanitas takes with a childish level of giddiness. “My parents would kill me if they knew I was up here, let alone with a guest.”

“Wow, the goody-two-shoes is flirting with danger?” Vanitas says, nearly choking on his own words when he realizes what he just said. He’s never been more grateful for the darkness of the night air than he is now.

“It’s not dangerous if you’re not dumb about it,” Ventus replies easily. “Besides, it’s easier to stargaze up here than it is from my window.”

Ventus lays down, folding his arms under his head as he looks to the stars that glitter overhead. Once Vanitas regains his composure, he lays down as well, careful to keep a good six inches between himself and Ventus. He squints up at the sky, barely able to detect the faint glittering overhead.

“They’re kind of hard to see, aren’t they? It used to be hard for me, too. Got easier once I got contacts,” Ventus explains.

Even if Vanitas had contacts, he doubt he’d be able to see any better. He doesn’t remember the night sky in that desert hell very well, never bothered to give it much thought, but he’s pretty sure the skies light up more in that kind of darkness. There’s too much light pollution here to see the blanket of glittering lights that he knows must be out there.

It doesn’t feel like any kind of loss to realize that. The stars that he can see here blink and twinkle, though some seem to flash different colors the longer he spends looking at them. He’d much rather see the ocean with his own eyes, see the way it stretches on beyond where his imagination ends. “...How can you tell the difference between stars and satellites?” Vanitas asks, frowning.

“Satellites move through the sky, since they orbit the Earth. Stars don’t. Oh, and if you see it blink green and red? Probably an airplane.”

“I still don’t get it. Staring up at the sky seems like a waste of time. Why bother? It’s not like we’ll ever be able to go there.”

Ventus goes silent, the space where his reply should come dragging against Vanitas’s skin with each passing second. It reminds him of the clock’s hands, of the fact that he should have been halfway to home by now.

He moves to get up, but freezes when Ventus’s voice finally comes back. “That doesn’t stop it from being beautiful.” His voice is so quiet, so gentle. Vanitas rolls onto his side, allowing himself just a moment to look for the sense of wonder he hears so clearly. Ventus notices him watching, face tilting towards his. Vanitas can see just enough to see the way his eyes flick back and forth - between the sky, and him.

He wonders if the waves could ever compare to the sea-blue that faces him now.

Ventus smiles - at least, Vanitas thinks he does - and suddenly, Vanitas is certain that this feeling couldn’t be anything over than love. What else could possibly be this fierce, this powerful, this all-consuming?

“And what are you smiling at?” Vanitas bites out, a weak cover to his own pulse racing in his ears.

“Your ugly face and weird raccoon eyes,” Ventus says, laughing. But insults are easy, easier than the tenderness he feels blooming within him, and he shoves Ventus’s shoulder. Ventus shoves him back, and that’s all it takes for them to start wrestling on the roof like a couple of toddlers.

At some point, between an elbow to Vanitas’s mouth and a light cuff aimed for Ventus’s head, they start laughing. That tenderness isn’t gone, not entirely, but a giddiness raises their spirits like helium balloons flying to the sky. It escapes them in chuckles and huffs, pulling and pushing at one another in a contest whose final result doesn’t matter any longer.

Until Ventus pushes Vanitas just enough to make him lose his balance, his hands unable to find purchase on the blanket. He goes tumbling down to the edge of the roof, barely able to grip the edge of the plaster and ceiling tile before falling on his ass onto the hard concrete below.

It only makes Vanitas laugh harder, escaping him in what must be the ugliest sounding cackles of his life. He’s happy, he realizes. Happy to be here and happy to feel like a kid without any ghosts looming over his shoulder or sickness pervading his steps for once in his fucking life.

He drops to the ground and keeps laughing, only laughing harder when Ventus scrambles down to his side and chews him out for, “Worrying me like that, you big idiot!” The light coming from inside is just enough to see the way Ventus puffs out his cheeks in frustration, pouting with all the fury of a six-year-old who dropped their ice cream on the sidewalk, and Vanitas laughs so hard he chokes on his spit.

Ventus’s parents pull into the driveway five minutes later, moments after Vanitas has wiped the tears from his eyes and the spit from the corner of his mouth. His side still hurts and his lungs wheeze from the exertion, but this is a fatigue that he’ll gladly welcome.

Vanitas goes inside, grabs his backpack, and finds Ventus following him into his parent’s car as they drive Vanitas home. There isn’t much more light in the car than on the roof, but it’s enough to catch Ventus watching him. Vanitas meets his eyes, brows furrowed and mouth twisted in confusion, but what he finds there is something… different. Something softer than he’s used to seeing on Ventus, something impossibly fond that steals his breath away once more.

He thinks about it for the rest of the night, letting it (and the weight of his puppy on the edge of his bed) lull him to sleep.

 

* * *

 

 iii.

“We ordered the cheese sticks, right?” Naminé asks, still blotting at the sweat that gathers underneath her bangs with a paper towel. She sits in the chair that she built entirely by herself; a simple wooden seat with slats that slightly curve against her back. She and Xion made a field trip out of their visit to IKEA, darting through the display rooms and leaving silly doodles on the notebooks abandoned inside random desks.

All Vanitas wanted were some chairs, but with nothing better to do, he let them eddy and swirl through the store to their hearts’ content. Four sturdy, adult chairs now sit around his dining table. A couple of cheap folding chairs live in the closet in case he needs more sitting room.

There’s enough space for all three of them to sit at the table now. It feels right.

“We did,” Xion confirms, glancing at the laptop sitting in front of her. She’s tiny enough that even on that thin seat, she can fold her legs and tuck them underneath herself. Vanitas could never do the same. “You said the wings would be bad, so we didn’t get them.”

“It depends where you get them from.” Something else strikes Vanitas. “Wait, where did you get the pizza from?”

“Papa John’s,” Xion answers, glancing down at the laptop screen in front of her. “It should get here any minute.”

Vanitas nods, accepting the information and keeping his phone close by. The delivery guy will probably need to call to be let into the building. “Their wings are decent, actually,” he says, turning to Naminé.

Naminé’s nose scrunches up as she frowns, making her look entirely like a rabbit about to sneeze. Vanitas scoffs at her. “You don’t believe me.”

“Pizza place wings are rarely good.”

“You’re just spoiled by BBQ Chicken. Most wings aren’t like that anyways.” Naminé starts to protest, but she’s cut off by the sound of a knock against the door.

That must be the delivery guy - someone must have let them into the building. It’s rare, but it wouldn’t be the first time this happened. Vanitas digs a five out of his wallet to tip them with and ushers his wary dogs into his room, closing his bedroom door on them so they won’t scare the fool when they come out to investigate.

Vanitas doesn’t bother to check who it may be before throwing the front door open.

Sunlight and sea-blue eyes shine at him, and Vanitas is frozen.

Ventus’s knuckles are white around the cardboard container he grips in his hands. He isn’t wearing the red polo that Vanitas has come to recognize as his uniform, but the khaki pants are still there. He must have ended his shift and volunteered to take the food on his own time.

The same way he used to.

( _Ball and chain_.)

“H-hi,” Ventus stammers. “You ordered a pizza and an order of cheese sticks, right? I have them here.”

Vanitas tries to nod. It’s never felt harder to do that simple gesture than it does now. He feels like he’s been turned to stone, like he once knew how to move but it’s been too long since he last tried.

Vanitas can feel the girls’ eyes on his back. That undoes the spell enough for him to clear his throat. “I did.” He takes the food and sets it on the nearest surface he can reach, which happens to be the set of shelves right by the door that he normally reserves for Void and Gear’s things. It’s a little too precarious of a position for his usual comfort, but right now? That doesn’t matter.

He spends what must be a lifetime just looking at Ventus, neither of them daring to speak. Ventus swallows nervously and Vanitas finds himself watching the bob of his throat. Waiting.

Hoping, but he’s not sure for what.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come here,” Ventus blurts out. “I just- I’ve been talking to Kairi, and she thought this was a good idea, and-” he cuts himself off with a groan as his hands grab fistfuls of his hair, tugging in a way that has to be painful.

Vanitas wants to grab his hands, keep him from hurting himself, but he’s frozen yet again.

Ventus stares down at his shoes. He’s gotten new ones since Vanitas last saw him, a pair of green Converse that aren’t nearly as filthy as his last. “I wanted to see you.”

Ventus looks much better than the last time they saw each other, so many months ago. The bags under his eyes are gone, restored by a restful break and time away from Vanitas’s penchant for dragging him into hell. His energy has returned, light and bright in a way he hadn’t been for a while.

He knows what Ventus wants to hear; the same fucking thing that Vanitas wants to say. The words cling to his throat, eager to slip out into the open and lock themselves around Ventus once more.

( _Ball and chain?_ )

A thought strikes him.

( _Maybe it’s time to try again._ )

Vanitas doesn’t know the ways that Ventus has changed, if he’s changed at all. Kairi (who, if what Ventus said earlier is any indication, is the entire reason why he’s standing at Vanitas’s doorstep) was both their reluctant shield and the only reflection they had of one another, filtered through her own perception and glass made foggy by her own judgements.

Four months is simultaneously impossibly long, and in the grand scheme of their previously-intertwined lives, nothing at all.

The boy who stands in front of him now is the spitting image of the one he used to spend countless weekends walking along the shores of Santa Monica with, hands shoved in their respective pockets and enjoying easy conversation and the ocean breeze caressing their cheeks.

But the Vanitas that walked at that boy’s side, desperately sun-starved for the one point of light in his miserable life, is not the Vanitas that stands here now.

Vanitas has _friends_ now, friends that he’d like Ventus to meet, to show and proclaim that _I chose them, and they choose me too. I haven’t ruined them the way I almost ruined you, but they’ve never thought I would and I’m starting to believe it, too._

The void within Vanitas that sucked away his world until nothing but Ventus remained is still there, the scars from those jagged edges still healing and tender, but the glass he stands upon has more than one picture on it these days.

Besides, Vanitas misses the sunlight kissing the back of his neck and the waves swirling around his ankles.

And he knows, without a doubt, that it misses him as well.

“You can come in, if you want,” Vanitas says.

Ventus’s smile is, time and time again, the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. His heart and his mind both eagerly etch the sight onto themselves, crystallizing that and the sheer speed with which Ventus rushes at him into his memory. Arms wrap around his waist and pull him into a tight embrace. Vanitas’s hands hover in the air, conscious of the two pairs of eyes watching them.

But they belong to his friends, and their gazes aren’t menacing, just curious. They’re probably wondering what the hell is going on. He’ll tell them later, after he lets himself and Ventus both have this moment.

Vanitas has enough experience with holding Ventus to know where to put his arms, how to bring this beloved boy close the way he likes. His palms come to rest on the small of Ventus’s back. Ventus hides his face in Vanitas’s neck and takes in a deep, shuddering breath.

Until he suddenly pulls back, hands moving from his waist to cup Vanitas’s cheeks. Ventus leans in until their foreheads are touching, and Vanitas finally understands why every romance novel he ever read as a kid described looking into someone else’s eyes as swimming.

For the first time, he doesn’t feel like he’s going to drag Ventus below the depths when he tries to tread the water.

“Hi, Vanitas,” Ventus says softly, every part of him full of warmth. Still, something about it sends a pleasant shiver down Vanitas’s spine.

Vanitas drops his own reply down to a whisper. He knows the girls are still watching, but his words are meant for one pair of ears only. “Hello, Ventus,” he whispers, reveling in the way he can feel Ventus shiver in turn.

That warmth still bubbles out of Ventus, mixing with something impossibly deep and unexplainably intense. Desperate, almost. “Okay, I know this is the first time we’ve seen each other in four months and I really think we need to talk but I just-” Ventus exhales, pursing his lips. The motion catches Vanitas’s attention and he watches carefully, unable to figure out what Ventus is getting at. “Look, I missed you like crazy and there’s something stupid I _really_ want to do right now.” He punctuates those words by dragging his thumb across Vanitas’s lips.

(Chapped, because he can’t stop chewing them. Not that he thinks Ventus particularly cares about that fact, in this current moment.)

Vanitas gets what he means with all the force of a truck slamming into him. His heart hammers in his chest, pumping fear and excitement all throughout his body.

But _god_ , does he want this. He hasn’t _stopped_ wanting this, not once. It’s stupid and Ventus has a point, they should probably talk first before rushing into something neither of them are ready to handle, let alone ready to regret-

-And behind them, the peanut gallery stirs.

“Does he do this with every delivery boy?” Naminé asks.

“No. This is the first time I’ve seen this,” Xion replies.

Ventus tears himself away from Vanitas with all the frantic energy of tires screeching across the street. He stares at the girls sitting at the table like they’re two ghosts that somehow materialized in Vanitas’s apartment. “H-how long have they been there!?” he asks, head whipping between Vanitas and the girls.

Vanitas can’t help but laugh, amusement cresting over the maelstrom of emotions swirling within him. “The whole time, Ventus.”

Ventus was too caught up in him to notice them. Which is hilarious, of course, but there are too many emotions whipping at Vanitas’s insides to figure out what else he feels. Elation, fear, amusement, pride - they all mix into something that he can’t decipher. It’s overwhelming.

“Wait, _Ventus_?” Xion asks, nearly throwing herself out of her seat in her attempt to rush over. She skids to a stop directly in front of him, peering at him curiously. “So you’re Ventus?”

Ventus leans away from her, clearly uncomfortable from what he must see as a random girl trying her hardest to stare into his soul. “Yeah. Most people call me Ven,” he says slowly. Warily.

“Xion, back off. You’re worse than the dogs,” Vanitas says, grabbing her by the shoulder and pushing her away.

She listens, thank god, but her curiosity gives way to a bright excitement. “Oh, wow! I’ve heard so much about you. I’m Xion. Nice to meet you, Ven.”

“Nice to meet you too,” he says, sounding almost defensive as he looks over her shoulder at the wisp of a girl still at the table. “Uh, what’s your name…?”

“That’s Naminé,” Vanitas answers for her. “Xion’s girlfriend. Don’t bother trying to talk to her from that far away. You wouldn’t be able to hear a thing she says.”

Naminé gets to her feet and drifts towards what is quickly feeling more and more like a crowd. She doesn’t bother to protest Vanitas’s description of her, not when she knows it’s true. “Ven, right? You wouldn’t happen to know Terra, would you?”

That does the trick, melting away all the trepidation that had been dulling Ventus. He lights up instantly, the sun finally shining through the morning haze. “Yeah! He’s one of my best friends. How do you know him?”

They start chatting about their mutual friend easily, like the two of them had also been friends for eons. This sight would have once stung Vanitas deeply, but he doesn’t feel angry. If anything, surprise peeks out of the tumult of emotions still swirling within him at Ventus’s sudden reappearance.

It’s surprising, that he isn’t jealous that Ventus cheered up at the mention of Terra’s name.

With both of them occupied, Xion leans close enough to Vanitas to whisper, “This is the first time you’ve seen each other in four months, right? Do you want some time to talk alone?” Yet again, she proves why she’s Vanitas’s best friend.

On one hand, _yes_. On the other hand, they all split the cost of that pizza and those cheese sticks, so the girls deserve to eat at least some of it.

Before Vanitas can answer, Ventus turns to face him. He seems to have calmed down. “I feel like I interrupted something,” he admits, his joy from earlier fading to unease. It’s strange - it’s always been the other way around.

Vanitas exchanges a glance with Xion, who nods at him eagerly. “Are you free in an hour, Ventus? I’d invite you to stay for dinner, but I ordered pizza so I didn’t have to cook.” And if there’s one thing Vanitas is certain hasn’t changed, it’s that Ventus spends so much time around Papa John’s pizza that he refuses to eat it.

Xion makes a confused sound, but Vanitas is content to let her be confused for a little longer. What’s more important is Ventus’s reaction. He nods quickly. “Yeah! Yeah, I can come back then.”

Something else escapes Vanitas before he can convince himself it’s a bad idea. “Pack some pajamas. I’m not going to feel like driving you back to your dorm.”

Translation, which Ventus picks up on immediately given the smile that stretches across his face: _Please stay over tonight. It’s been too long._

Judging the coy smiles both Naminé and Xion wear, they must have picked up on that as well. Resisting the urge to groan, he looks away from the she-devil and his bad choice of a best friend to watch the burst of sunlight still standing in his apartment.

“Got it! I’ll be back soon, okay?”

“I’m holding you to that.”

Ventus looks so fucking happy. He goes to leave, but before he does, he rushes towards Vanitas and wraps him in another tight hug. “I really missed you,” he whispers.

Vanitas holds him in turn. “I missed you, too.”

It feels wrong to break apart, but the knowledge that Ventus will be back before the sun even sets makes letting go possible. It’s easier to watch the waves recede along the shore when you know they’ll return soon, stronger than ever.

With an awkward wave to the girls, Ventus leaves, carefully shutting the door behind him. The moment he does, Xion and Naminé turn their attention back towards Vanitas, looking way more eager than either of them have any right to be.

He breaks away from them and collapses into one of his newly built chairs with a loud sigh. “Before you two get ahead of yourselves, yes, that was Ventus. And yes, you’re going to have to be gone by the time he comes back.”

Neither girl protests. No, what they both do is fucking _giggle_ and spend the next hour eating pizza, cheesy bread, and unsubtly grilling Vanitas about his love life.

Vanitas has to convince Naminé three separate times not to pull out her sketchbook and start drawing Ventus right anyway, but he manages it somehow.

They wish him luck when they leave, their words hanging sweetly in his apartment.

They believe so much in him. He thinks he can believe, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ive been referring to the end of this chapter as "pizza reunion" for WEEKS


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the second timeline has officially ended, as of last chapter! which i know felt pretty climactic in a lot of ways, but we are. uh. far. from the end. very far. more than halfway, but less than two-thirds, as of this chapter. i said this was gonna be a long ride, and it is! 
> 
> in its place is actually... haha... a fourth timeline? surprise! this has been planned from the very beginning. the scene with xion was originally meant to be part of the first chapter. it's the third overall scene i ever wrote for this fic! but i wanted to explore vanitas and xion's relationship before delving into the path that the fourth timeline follows, and everything else from that timeline kind of followed naturally. there was originally supposed to be a LOT less romance and a lot more expounding about grief but, uh. i like romance. i leaned into the romance. which has been really fun! but there's still a lot of expounding to do.
> 
> from here on out, the ratio of sad scenes to not sad scenes definitely tilts in favor of the latter.

iv.

It starts with a simple thought, one that pops suddenly in the back of his mind as Vanitas sits in the back of his Inorganic Reaction Mechanisms lecture. He’s ignoring Kuzco’s ramblings by messaging a potential client on Instagram, some trust-fund girl from Malibu with a purse dog that keeps peeing all over her wallet. Vanitas would have a much better time drop-kicking these rat-dogs over the wrought-iron gates their owners always live in than actually training them, but it’s way too easy to overcharge rich girls.

There’s nothing about the girl or her ugly dog or Kuzco’s anecdote about his favorite restaurant in Hollywood that could possibly remind Vanitas of the old man, but the thought makes itself known.

Maybe he should visit his grave.

The drive will take two hours, but it’s early enough in the quarter that he can waste a Saturday without too much issue. There might not be another chance to go, especially with the multiple rounds of midterms Vanitas will have to suffer through. He can spare pockets of time here and there, but he’d much rather spend those smaller moments distracting Ventus from thoughts of vet school applications that have taken over his mind recently than planning a trip to visit the old man’s ashes.

But this week? Vanitas can spare a two hour drive each way and half a tank of gas, easily.

He tries to banish the thought, but it stays in his mind with stubborn insistence. He and Minnie spent the majority of their summer sessions slogging through the trenches of his past. There’s still more to work through, still epiphanies that arise out of nowhere that leave him nauseous for hours, but there’s a strange sense of freedom that comes with bringing his hell to light.

A grave can’t hurt him. A grave can’t call him insults that he still works to scrub off his skin. A grave can be screamed at for as long as he wants to scream.

Is that what closure looks like? He doesn’t know.

He'll never know if he doesn't at least try.

Kuzco is back on track, so Vanitas draws a quick model and jots down a few notes about chelate complexes before opening up iMessage on his computer. The message gets delivered before he has time to realize what he’s done.

Xion’s response comes quickly.

_Yes, I’m free this Saturday. Did you have something in mind?_

Vanitas could still back out of it. They could find a coffee shop somewhere on Abbot Kinney that they haven’t been kicked out of yet and spend the day there. Maybe go to the green tea cafe Xion mentioned wanting to try before taking Naminé there. Vanitas could complain about this new potential client, her obnoxious Instagram account, and her ugly dog. Xion could talk about how much her bosses have settled down since the summer ended and how easy her job is now.

He doesn’t.

_You ever been to Riverside before?_

_No, I haven’t!_ A gasping emoji. _It sounds nice._

Vanitas snorts, eliciting a glare from the girl in the seat next to them. Vanitas shoots her a dirty look, jots down the newest model on the board behind Kuzco, and replies. _It’s not. Want to come with me for a day trip?_

She doesn’t know about the old man. None of her friends do either, which is strange considering the ridiculously large amounts of time Vanitas spends with Xion, her weird roommates, her weirder girlfriend, and her small army of gothy PhD students that would start a riot for her.

Kairi does, but she doesn’t talk about it. She knows better than to.

It feels almost like he’s lying to them all. He’s not sure what he looks like to someone who can’t see the ghost hovering behind his shoulder. There are even times when he’s unsure if the person they see is really the person he is.

Xion’s his best friend. As much as he hates admitting it, the old man casts too large of a shadow over his life not to be important. She should know.

It’d be easier if it wasn’t so awkward to talk about. He’ll talk to someone, and then they get that _look_ in their eyes that makes Vanitas want to slam his head into a wall. Instead he ends up being the one trying to lamely comfort the other person about his shitty dead dad. Pity feels like poison on his skin, like the blisters from sunburns he doesn’t get anymore, and there are few things in the world he hates more than that.

Besides, how is anyone supposed to bring something like that up? There aren’t rulebooks on this kind of thing. There’s not much of anything, not for his situation. No one _really_ knows how to act when death stares them in the face until they’re the one opening the door to let it in. When it’s someone you love, at least there are easy scripts to fall back on.

No one tells you how to react when someone who made your life not worth living dies.

Xion’s reply pops onto his screen. _I think we’ll still be able to have fun regardless._ A smiling emoji, followed by a heart. _I’ll come._

He should really tell her.

 

* * *

 

i.

The news isn’t entirely surprising. Not with increasingly complex assortment of pill bottles that seem to appear out of nowhere, decorating part of Xehanort’s massive bed like knick-knacks on a cabinet shelf. Not with the chart that Vanitas and the nurse take turns filling out for what pills has to get taken when.

( _Honestly, Vanitas is better at taking notes than the nurse is. His handwriting is neater and the nurse never remembers to write down when the next dose is due. Making his tea correctly is harder than that._ )

Vanitas isn’t sure how he feels about it. After Xehanort told him, wielding his own impending mortality like a knife against Vanitas’s throat, he went back to his room and looked up the process to become an emancipated minor. If he picks up a job after school, maybe he could convince a judge to get the law to see him as a fully-fledged adult.

Except he can’t leave his house when the nurse isn’t there. Someone has to take care of the old man. Vanitas doesn’t get a choice.

Usually the school’s perimeter fence, as boring as it is, keeps the thoughts of Xehanort out. He doesn’t think about home when he’s here, not when he can think about teaching Void a trick or how to carve another jewelry box in woodshop or how he’ll gladly add another ten pushups to his morning routine if it means getting Ventus’s eyes to linger on his arms a little longer whenever he wears tank tops to school.

But it’s lunch, and Vanitas hasn’t stopped thinking about it. The news bubbles within him, pressure building within as it threatens to get out in whatever way it can. He gets to the planter, chocolate milk in one hand and a mediocre salad in the other, and waits for Ventus to stop laughing at Terra’s joke long enough to acknowledge him. He hears Terra’s greeting and sees Aqua’s nod of acknowledgement, but Ventus is the only person he trusts enough to tell this kind of thing to. He may not understand, but he’ll listen. That’s enough.

Ventus calms down enough to open his eyes. He jolts when he realizes that Vanitas stands in front of him, but it’s quickly replaced by a delighted smile. “There you are! What took you so long? Lunch is halfway over,” he says, gesturing to the crumpled paper bag in his hands. He doesn’t bring a lunch box anymore. He thinks it’s too childish.

Vanitas always thought it was kind of cute. Something that was uniquely Ventus’s. Why not be proud of that?

But those thoughts are far from Vanitas’s mind. “Can I talk to you? _Alone_?”

He ignores the weird faces Aqua and Terra both pull (though they’re two entirely different breeds of weird; Aqua looks like she stepped in gum, while Terra’s eyebrows threaten to climb so high up on his face that they could disappear into his hairline at any moment) to focus solely on Ventus’s reaction.

The other boy is nervous, judging by the way he starts fidgeting with what used to be his lunch bag, but he hops to his feet easily. “Uh, yeah! Where do you want to go?”

Vanitas looks around, searching for a good place to go. He could care less about prying eyes. He’s more concerned with prying ears. After a few moments, he points towards some empty classrooms a little ways away, old portables that Vanitas is fairly certain don’t contain any teachers hoping to eat their lunches in the relative safety away from students. Hardly anyone hangs around this side of campus, anyways. Why would they, when the cafeteria is so far away?

Ventus sticks to his side as they walk, eyes darting everywhere. He’s clearly trying to be smooth about it, but Vanitas knows that Ventus keeps stealing glances at him. He’s going to regret all that pent up excitement in about twenty seconds.

“So, what did you want to talk about?” Ven asks, feigning cheerfulness once they’re far enough away from the others.

“It’s about Xehanort.”

Whatever pleasant warmth had been lingering in Ventus’s eyes is extinguished immediately, like sunlight blocked out by heavy clouds. “Oh.”

“He’s sick. Well, sicker. Physically.”

These days, Vanitas is pretty sure Xehanort’s always been sick, somewhere deep in his soul. He doesn’t care enough to figure out why.

Ventus nods slowly and watches him, waiting for him to continue.

“He told me this morning before I was about to go to school. Wanted me to make him some tea before I left, but I told him I couldn’t be late. He told me that he supposed it didn’t matter if he only had six months left to live, anyways.” Vanitas shrugs.

“Does that mean…?”

“Doctors said he was terminal, apparently.”

Ventus’s hand comes to rest on his arm, squeezing gently. “You’ve mentioned that he was sick a few times before, but I never thought it’d be this bad… what exactly is it?”

“What _isn’t_ it, at this point?” There’s so many things wrong with the old man that it’s hard to tell where the health complications end and the side effects from all the meds start. Vanitas is pretty sure he has medications just to treat the side effects of other pills. It’s an endless feedback loop, and Vanitas is the one who loses out.

He’s starting to get pretty good at differentiating between painkillers.

“Vanitas…” Ventus trails off, squeezing his arm once more. It takes him a few moments to find his voice. “How are you feeling?”

Again, Vanitas shrugs.

Ventus, to his credit, doesn’t try to offer some half-hearted condolences. Vanitas doesn’t tell him much about what happens outside of school, but he’s picked up on enough to know that those words would be a waste of air. Instead, he offers something that Vanitas doesn’t expect. “Anything I can do to help you?”

“Help _me_? I’m not the one with the timer hanging around my neck.” Or written down on a doctor’s note.

“Maybe, but you’re the one that’s my best friend. Didn’t I already tell you that friends help each other?”

His hand is still on Vanitas. What he really wants, helpful or not, is for that hand to trail down to his own and keep him from being swallowed up by the night sky. But he’s always wanted that, regardless of whatever chaos he has to go home to after the final bell rings.

He can’t ask Ventus for that though. He couldn’t bear to hear him say no.

“Walk with me,” Vanitas says instead. It’s easier not to dwell when he’s moving. While Ventus still has judo matches to go to and practices to attend, Vanitas’s own practice has come to an end. He’s found other ways to keep moving.

“Okay,” Ventus says, looking over his shoulder in the direction where his friends still sit. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He goes to leave, but Vanitas grabs his wrist, terror clenching his throat shut. He swallows thickly and forces his next words out, thick sludge oozing from his lips. “Promise me you won’t fucking tell them, Ventus.”

He can’t deal with the looks. The confusion. The questions. It’s easier if they don’t know.

“Of course I won’t! It’s not my place to say. I’m just gonna grab my things, okay? I’ll tell them you forgot something in class and I’m coming with you to get it.”

Satisfied, Vanitas lets go. Ventus disappears around the corner, leaving terror to seep back in where Ventus’s grip once was. Thoughts race through his mind. What if Ventus doesn’t come back? What if Aqua and Terra needle their way towards the truth? Ventus can disobey Aqua if he’s angry enough, but he’s always idolized Terra too much to refuse him any answers he wants.

Vanitas could just walk away. If he leaves first, then it won’t matter when Ventus doesn’t come back. He can walk by himself just fine. He knows what parts of this tiny campus that people avoid during lunch.

Vanitas takes a step-

-and Ventus’s voice freezes him in place. “Hey, don’t start walking without me!” Just like that, there’s sunlight at his side, clad in a plain white v-neck and fixing the straps of the faded green backpack on his shoulders.

He’s so fucking beautiful.

“Which way do you want to go, Vanitas?”

 

* * *

 

iii.

Vanitas throws his front door open the moment he hears a knock. Just like he promised, Ventus stands there, backpack looped over his shoulders and smiling shyly at Vanitas. Vanitas steps to the side wordlessly, which Ventus rightfully takes as an invitation to come in.

The dogs have been released from Vanitas’s bedroom. The moment they see Ventus enter they both barrel towards him, their tails wagging so hard their entire butts shake from the movement. “Void, Gear!” he says, dropping to his knees as they both jump up on him.

Vanitas smiles at the sight, unable to call them off like he knows he should. They know better than to jump up on people, but they must have missed Ventus, too. Ventus’s laughter is bright and beautiful as Void and Gear both eagerly lick his face, showering him in affection as he pets them just the way they both like. It’s like they’re both puppies again, overeager and unwilling to listen to Vanitas’s commands. He’ll let them have this moment.

Ventus fits so effortlessly back into Vanitas’s life, waves cutting the same grooves into the sand as the tide rises once more. Vanitas’s gratitude is pleasantly sharp within him.

Eventually Ventus gets in what must be his daily quota of petting dogs and he gets back to his feet, the dogs eager at his heels as he turns towards Vanitas. There’s so much slobber on his face. With a grimace, Vanitas snatches a few paper towels off the roll sitting on the kitchen counter and passes them to Ventus, who gets the hint and wipes himself clean. He’s also _covered_ in dog hair, dark strands standing as a sharp contrast to the light blue of his hoodie.

Emblazoned with the school’s logo, whose twin gathers dust in the back of Vanitas’s closet. He wasn’t wearing that before. Somehow, it feels intentional. Vanitas has to suppress a shiver at the thought.

Slowly, Ventus slides his shoes off and sets them on the rack by the door. The gap on the plastic rack where his shoes used to sit whenever he came over is filled once more. Watching him feels like another broken piece sliding back into place.

Thankfully, they both seem calmer than they were just an hour ago, no longer riding that high of seeing each other for the first time in too damn long. He can actually think about things other than wrapping Ventus in his arms and forgetting the world around them.

He’s stable enough to know he’s _not_ stable enough to handle something as overwhelming as Ventus’s full, desperate affections.

Maybe he should have texted Minnie for advice before Ventus came over - usually he just texts her for appointment confirmations, but she gave him her cell for a reason. She’s told him to reach out if anything big happens, and short of the old man’s corpse reforming and appearing in his mirror, this is as big as big can get.

And much less terrible, though not much less terrifying, if he’s being honest.

Instead he tries to think of what Minnie would suggest they do. _Communication is key!_ His mental image of her insists in her gentle voice.

Ventus breaks the silence. “You got new chairs,” he says, fixated on the dining table.

“Yeah. Got them today, actually.”

“They’re nice.”

“That’s why I picked them.”

They’re off to a fantastic start.

The silence that stretches between them is unsure. Maybe Ventus isn’t tracing the old grooves of their life together as effortlessly as Vanitas initially thought. Clearing his throat, Vanitas gestures to the couch. He didn’t kick his friends out of his apartment and skip out on arguing about _The Great British Bake Off_ to stand here twiddling his thumbs like a moron for the rest of the night. “...We need to talk.”

“Yeah,” Ventus says. “Where should we…?”

Vanitas gestures to the table. The couch may be more comfortable, but now that Ventus is here, looking at it just makes him picture the two of them desperately trying to smash their broken pieces together. He’s not going to keep him at arm’s distance, especially not after multiple sessions with Minnie focused solely on how his mindset about Ventus wasn’t healthy.

He’s waited this long that he can stand not to rush for a little while longer. They’re like a broken leg that’s finally freed from its cast. Each muscle needs to be carefully tested out, its strength slowly built over time. Like a tan that develops after days in the sun, these burns will fade in time.

Ventus slips into one of the old chairs, while Vanitas sits in one of the new ones. The colors between the two sets are just a shade apart, but it’s close enough that Vanitas only noticed the difference after the chairs were already built. He doesn’t mind it much, as it turns out.

But enough about _chairs_. “You look better than you did before,” Vanitas says, gesturing aimlessly. “Brighter. Less tired.”

“You do too,” Ventus says. “You look happier.”

“Yeah… I think I am.” Noticing the way Ventus’s eyes widen the fraction of an inch, just enough to reveal a glimmer of guilt, Vanitas quickly backtracks. “Not because you weren’t here. God, no. For most of my life, you were the only good thing in it. But you don’t know how fucking hard it is to live your life and know that there’s only one person out of seven billion that you matter to.” He hears his own voice grow soft. “You saw them when you first came here. I have _friends now_.”

“You’ve had friends for a long time!” Ventus insists. “You had me, and Terra, and Aqua!”

“Wrong. I had you, and you had friends who put up with me because of you. But I _chose_ the friends I have now, and they chose me. Sure, I met most of them through Xion, but they don’t hang out with me because they want to make her happy. They hang out with me because… because _I_ make them happy. I don’t have to guess. I know.”

It feels powerful, to give those words form. They take on a power of their own as they swell in the air.

“They could have been your friends too, Vanitas. You just needed to let them in.”

“Maybe, but they’d always be your friends first.” Sighing, Vanitas continues on. “Look. I’m not trying to pick a fight with you, Ventus. I’m trying to use my mouth words and everything.” Ventus cracks a tiny smile at the joke, sending Vanitas’s heart into hummingbird wings fluttering against his ribs. “But I was obsessed with you. I had no one in my life _but_ you. You could have spent every single moment with me and it still wouldn’t have solved anything.” Vanitas pauses. “I’m still angry that you skipped a midterm for me, by the way.”

“I was on my way to take it when you called me that last time,” Ventus finally admits. Vanitas had suspected as much for a while, but it feels strangely cleansing to have it confirmed. “You sounded so hurt that my dumb midterm didn’t matter anymore.”

“You dropped down to one class because of it. You’re behind now, aren’t you.”

Ventus’s smile turns a little rueful. “So much for graduating this year. I’m so behind in my class sequences that I can’t even make up the difference with summer classes. I’ll have to take another year, I think.”

“And that’s my fault.”

“What!?” Ventus looks at him, shocked. “No, of course not! My classes last quarter were harder than I thought they’d be, anyways. I should have gone to office hours and asked for help, but I didn’t. Yeah, I was also worried about you, but that doesn’t make me messing up your fault.”

Vanitas doesn’t believe him, guilt still scraping along the back of his throat, but he doesn’t fight the point. “You know what my therapist called us? Codependent.”

“Your… therapist?” Ventus echoes. “Kairi never told me you started going to therapy.”

“Yeah, because I never told Kairi. Do you really think I’m the type of person who goes around spilling my secrets to everyone?”

“Okay, point taken. It’s helped you, hasn’t it.”

Four months feels like such a short time, but if Ventus has noticed a change, then maybe it really does work. “I guess it has.”

“I’m happy for you. Really, I am.” Despite his words, there’s something in his voice that sounds off. Vanitas can’t put his finger on what it is.

Frustrated, Vanitas takes a deep breath. He doesn’t count to ten, but he does make it to five, hands clenching in and out of fists in a steady rhythm. “I want things to be different this time, Ventus. Better. Kairi once told me that our worlds are too big for just one person to fill. And she’s right - they are. But I’m sick of not having you in my life at all, and I think you’re sick of it too.”

That’s enough to get Ventus to chuckle, even if it isn’t anything more than a soft exhale under his breath. “You can say that again. But… I don’t know, I thought things were good between us before. Maybe not so much at the end, sure, but we’ve been friends for most of our lives. Was that all bad?”

Part of Vanitas wants to say _yes_ , but more and more, the part of himself that chants about the ball and chain feels like a liar. It wasn’t healthy, but there’s a louder part of himself that thinks that his love is more than a ball and chain ready to drag Ventus into hell.

( _He can be better than where - than_ who _\- he came from._ )

The balance is tipped enough for him to say, “No, it wasn’t. It can be better, though.”

“...Yeah. You’re right.” A hesitant hope shines within Ventus, bright like the Santa Monica sun coming out after weeks of winter storms and cloudy skies. He really did miss its warmth. “So, what do you say? Friends?”

He sticks his hand out over the table.

This is _always_ what happens, isn’t it. Laughing, Vanitas bats his hand away and stands up. He breezes past the corner of the table before Ventus can get offended and pulls him into a hug. There’s a brief, terrifying moment where Ventus freezes in place, but it lasts just long enough for Ventus to realize what’s going on. His shock fades as he melts into the embrace, pressing his face into Vanitas’s chest.

“For now, yeah,” Vanitas says. “Friends.”

“For now? What’s that supposed to mean?” Ventus asks, voice muffled by fabric of his tank top.

“You know exactly what I mean. Don’t play dumb.” Vanitas cards his hand through Ventus’s hair, spikes gliding through his fingers effortlessly. He feels Ventus’s shiver more than he sees it. It’s obvious what they both want, but Vanitas knows he isn’t ready for that level of commitment still. He’s not sure if Ventus is, either.

It’s like learning to walk again. Slowly, carefully, one unsteady step at a time.

( _What it feels like when the ball and chain comes off, metal turning to rust in the sand. Unrestricted movement does not mean unrelenting movement._ )

Eventually, they put a movie on and relocate to the couch. Ventus gets buried under two pitbulls and they spend more time filling each other in on the details of their lives than they do paying attention to the tv. The background noise is nice, though. For what is probably the first time, Vanitas has more to share than Ventus.

They talk until their throats go hoarse and their eyelids weigh heavy on them. Ventus nearly falls asleep halfway through Vanitas’s explanation as to why he can never step foot inside the In-N-Out in Westwood ever again, and at that point it’s obvious that it’s time to go to sleep.

Vanitas digs out the air mattress from the back of his closet, where it sat abandoned since the start of the new year. As much as he’d like Ventus to share his bed, the dog beds take up too much space and Vanitas likes to sprawl too much for them to fit there together without spooning.

Right now, that’s still too much, too fast. The air mattress it is.

He spots the painting Naminé made of him in the corner, gold glittering in the dim light filtering in from his bedroom lamp. He wants to show it to Ventus still, but decides against pulling it out now. He’ll wait for when Ventus isn’t asleep on his feet.

He’s rearranged his bedroom since the last time Ventus was here. Before, he’d always lay the air mattress out near the foot of his mattress. Now, with Vanitas’s bed relocated against the wall after his last bout of deep cleaning and his desk standing near the foot of his bed, the only place the air mattress will fit is in the space between the door and the mattress that is a permanent fixture here.

Vanitas sets up the electric air pump, ignoring the annoying buzz as it does its job. Ventus, the lucky bastard, is locked away in the bathroom, getting ready for bed. He doesn’t have to listen to it. By the time he’s out, the mattress is fully inflated and Vanitas’s spare bedding is messily thrown over it. Ventus doesn’t make his own bed in the morning, so why should Vanitas make it for him? He’ll survive.

They trade places; Vanitas takes over the bathroom while Ventus settles into bed. Surprise, dulled by his own exhaustion from the day, registers within him when he comes out to see ocean eyes sleepily watching him.

Vanitas flicks his lamp off and gets into bed. There’s just enough light to see Ventus’s warm smile. “Goodnight, Vanitas,” he says, snaking his arm out from underneath the blanket. His fingers trace along Vanitas’s arm and down to his hand, grasping it in his own.

His palm is so warm. Vanitas squeezes the hand in his own gently. “Night, Ventus.”

Ventus hums, sleepy and full of contentment. Vanitas’s heart feels like it’s being squeezed as well, caught in a vice grip of something inexplicably powerful.

“I missed you,” Ventus says, though Vanitas hears something else behind those words. The same thing that lit Terra’s way back home, the same thing that drives Xion to that shadowy girl who cloaks her world in art.

“I missed you too.”

One day, he’ll be able to say those hidden words for real.

For now, Ventus falls asleep holding his hand tight.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> three notes! first, to clear up a little (completely understandable!!!) confusion: the fourth timeline takes place after the third, during the following september! i tried to make that pretty clear in this chapter. 
> 
> secondly, we get some very fun reveals in this chapter. a few that i know a few people in the comments have picked up on, and a few that aren't as easy to spot. 
> 
> and third, PLEASE TAKE A LOOK AT [THIS AMAZING FANART](https://twitter.com/_spacejamtwo/status/1121624803062894592?s=21) THAT MADE ME SCREAM!!!! it's so beautiful and i'm absolutely losing my SHIT over symbolism that won't be relevant until six chapters from now because the artist is basically psychic and somehow got ahold of my search history. it's so good. i love it. and on that note, thank you for nearly 300 kudos (gasp!!!)

iii.

Ventus pads sleepily out of Vanitas’s bedroom a solid hour after Vanitas wakes up. He rubs at his eyes and yawns, stopping in the middle of his living room to hum and stretch.

Vanitas stares at the small patch of skin that peeks out from beneath his shirt as he lifts his arms. He’s sad to see it disappear under green fabric once more as Ventus finishes his stretch and joins him in the kitchen. “Morning,” Ventus mumbles. “Did you eat?”

“No,” he says, turning back to the bag of chicken on the counter. He grabs a couple of thighs and tosses them onto the cutting board he’s already pulled out. “Dogs eat first. You know that.”

Ventus pauses to squint at the meat, lingering close enough for his messy hair to brush against Vanitas’s cheek. Vanitas takes a deep breath and slices the chicken with way more force than necessary. The quiet, gentle intimacy of the moment leaves him reeling.

He wonders if Ventus feels the same, but a quick glance reveals that he’s barely awake enough to realize where he is. No need to blame him for not reciprocating it.

“It’s chicken and… cooked liver in the morning? Is that right?”

“No. Chicken thigh and a half cup of canned food each in the morning, cooked liver and cup of dry food at night. Same thing it’s been since I could afford it.”

Ventus frowns, waking up more with each passing moment. “...Right.” He draws away from Vanitas. “I’m gonna get some water.”

“Knock yourself out. Brita’s in the fridge,” Vanitas says, returning his attention to finishing the chicken. He can hear Gear’s claws clack against the kitchen tile (or linoleum, he doesn’t really get the difference) and a whine start to build in the back of her throat. She sits by his feet and he steadfastly ignores her sad eyes. She’ll get her food soon enough, the spoiled thing.

The dogs’ bowls are on the counter, wet food already measured out within and ready to go. He dumps a thigh into each bowl and sets them down a good foot away from where the carpet begins. Void’s good about eating, but Gear’s too messy of a eater to set it any closer without risking having to clean chicken juice from his carpet.

He hears the fridge door open and then close once the Brita pitcher appears in Ventus’s hand. Vanitas sets to washing his own hands as Ventus rummages through the cabinets, probably looking for the old mug he liked to use whenever he was over.

One cabinet door opens, then another, and another. Ventus opens a fourth before slamming it shut and groaning into his hands, pitcher abandoned on the countertop. He takes a deep, ragged breath, and Vanitas feels his blood freeze in his veins.

Vanitas hasn’t _done_ anything to make him upset, that much he’s certain of. If Ventus was mad that Vanitas didn’t wake him up, then he would have stormed in here with a frown, not shuffled his way in. And Vanitas hasn’t done anything but feed his dogs. There’s no way that’s objectionable.

He has no idea what could be wrong, but each shuddering breath feels like a hammer threatening to shatter him to pieces.

Slowly, he edges towards Ventus, hand half-raised in an aborted attempt to touch him. “What’s going on?” he asks, trying his hardest to soften his own rocky voice. He isn’t sure if it works.

Ventus’s hands curl into fists, right over his eyes. His laugh is pained. “I can’t remember where you keep your mugs. You didn’t move them, did you?”

Now, Vanitas is just lost. There’s no way Ventus would be on the verge of tears over something as stupid as a _mug_ , especially not one he got from Target for eight bucks. The one he must have been looking for is just a piece of white ceramic with a black _V_ painted on the outside. There’s nothing special about it. “...No.”

Ventus’s pain turns to agony when he laughs again. He’s crying in earnest and Vanitas is terrified. “Sorry,” Ventus says, scrubbing at his face. “It’s dumb. I’m being dumb.”

Something within Vanitas twists violently at his words. “You’re not dumb, stop that,” he snaps. “But I don’t get it. Why are you upset?”

Ventus shakes his head. Vanitas stamps down his frustration as an imaginary Minnie gently chides him about communication.

Stupid therapy, helping him stumble through conversations.

“Ventus,” Vanitas sighs, trying his hardest to be patient, “We won’t get anywhere if you won’t tell me what’s wrong. I won’t shatter the moment you show me you’re not just sunshine and smiles.”

( _And gentle waves, rushing around his ankles. Can’t forget that._ )

Ventus sobs in earnest, broken and small. Like he’s reaching for a scared animal, Vanitas tries to be as gentle as possible as he rests his hand on Ventus’s shoulder. The contact makes him sob harder and he wrenches himself back as if he’s been burned.

He doesn’t know how to make Ventus feel better.

But he won’t leave, so he waits for Ventus to regain enough of his composure to speak. It takes a solid minute, each cry stabbing deep into Vanitas’s heart. When he does speak, his words are weak. “You’ve changed so much. It’s good, really! But here I am, and I can’t even remember something as simple as where you _keep your mugs_. I practically lived here over winter break, and I was over all the time since the day you got this place! How could I forget?”

“It really isn’t that big of a deal, Ventus.”

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say, because it only makes Ventus break into a fresh round of tears. Vanitas barely resists the urge to punch himself in the face.

“But it is!” Ventus insists, managing yet again to save Vanitas from himself. He can’t beat himself up when Ventus is _right here_ , needing to be listened to. Vanitas isn’t selfish enough for that. “It is a big deal! Because you’re different now, and you have these new chairs and these new friends and I got left behind!”

Something strikes Vanitas in that moment.

What he says next is with no malice, no resentment. It’s just a simple statement. It isn’t designed to make Ventus feel guilty, but he knows it will. Still, he has to say it. He has to know Ventus understands. “I spent most of my life looking at you with your friends, your family, your Sensei - everything you had, Ventus, and thinking the exact same thing. How often did I have to watch you from the sidelines?”

“And how many times did I try to get you to join me? How many times did I invite you over for the holidays before you finally said yes? You- you come close, and then you push me away! All the time! Every time I think it’ll be different, it isn’t!” He lets his hands fall to his sides, just long enough to aim a teary-eyed scowl at Vanitas. “You put yourself on the sidelines, Vanitas!”

“And you think you aren’t doing the exact same thing right now?” Vanitas shoots back, some part of him withering at the fact that Ventus is crying in his kitchen and yet all they’re doing is picking a fight with each other.

He’s better than he was before, but those jagged edges remain, still all too easy for Ventus to fall on.

But rather than fight back, Ventus starts to laugh. It’s a watery sound, weighed down by his heavy emotions, but it isn’t rueful or bitter. He wipes at his nose with the back of his hand. Disgusted, Vanitas snatches a paper towel off the dispenser and shoves it in Ventus’s direction. He takes it (thank god) and uses it as a tissue (gross).

“Jeez, Vanitas,” Ventus says, crumpling the paper towel into a ball, “You make me feel stupid when you put it that way.”

“That’s because you should feel stupid. We fell asleep _holding hands_. In what world is that leaving you behind?” _In what world would I ever want to leave you?_

Something dark and terrifying flashes in Ventus’s eyes, the waves whipped wild in a storm. Apparently that was the wrong thing to say.

“The same world where you kiss me one week and then refuse to talk to me for four months the next.” There are tear tracks still glimmering against his cheeks, but his sorrow is burned away by anger.

Vanitas understands that change well. Sorrow is difficult. But anger? Anger is easy. Reliable. An easy feeling to get drunk on.

“You’re not the only one who’s allowed to be mad here, you know,” Ventus says. “If I hadn’t come here, how much longer would I have had to wait for you to reach out? How many more weeks would I have had to listen to Kairi tell me that you miss me, only for nothing to happen? How can I know you’re not just going to disappear again the moment things get too hard to handle?”

In this moment, Vanitas realizes that Ventus’s anger has simmered, low but no less intense for it, for much longer than four months.

No, probably closer to five years.

“That was different, Ventus! I was eighteen and I had just gotten kicked out. What else was I supposed to do?”

“Pick up my calls, you moron!” Ventus is all fury now, his rage the kind of sunburn on Vanitas’s skin that’ll leave him peeling for days. The kind that no amount of aloe can soothe. “I had no cell phone reception for an hour because I was in a waiting room at the hospital! I called you back the second we were done there and what did I get, Vanitas? Nothing! For three weeks, nothing! I didn’t know what happened to you and neither did anyone else!” Ventus slams his fist on the countertop, angrier than Vanitas has ever seen him in his life. “I thought you were _dead_!”

Ventus is screaming his words. He never screams. He never allows his rage to flow so freely.

Vanitas wasn’t dead. Terrified out of his mind, and freezing under a thin blanket curled up on the backseat of a technically-stolen car, sure, but breath still flowed through his lungs.

A small part of Vanitas does feel ready to die at the admission. “Why did you never tell me this?” is all he can ask.

“Because when you finally did pick up my call, I found out what happened to you and I couldn’t put you through more stress! I didn’t want to tell you, but you know what? Fine! I’m telling you now, so you can push me away once and for all!”

It makes more sense now, why Kairi’s smiling profile picture appeared in his Facebook messages one day and refused to take no for an answer when she wanted to meet up regularly.

Vanitas won’t let himself get angry back. He clenches his hands in and out of fists and counts to ten in his mind, letting his own anger slough off him. It’s almost amazing, how that tenderness from last night can flee so quickly. But Ventus wouldn’t be this mad if Vanitas didn’t matter to him. And hell, maybe he’s a little broken too. He’s just better at hiding it.

Slow, unsteady steps. Sometimes falling is part of that process.

What matters is that they get up again.

“I won’t push you away again, okay? But you can’t keep hiding shit from me, either,” Vanitas says, careful to keep his voice even. “I told you last night I want things to be better. I think this is how we start.”

“How can I believe that, though? How can I know for sure that you won’t?”

“Would a promise help?”

“...A little.”

“Then I promise I won’t push you away anymore. No more needy, codependent bullshit though. I won’t disappear, but if I’m having a mental breakdown, I’m supposed to call the professional I hired to help me sort out my shit first. In exchange, no more bottling shit up because you’re afraid of breaking me. Deal?”

Vanitas doesn’t stick his hand out to shake. He waits for Ventus to respond, hoping the remnants of his anger will melt away.

After a few moments, Ventus nods. “Deal.”

Vanitas opens his arms, quietly hoping that Ventus will not only get the hint, but accept it. There’s a few moments of clear hesitation, spent by Ventus’s foot hovering in the air as he debates stepping closer or not.

But he does, and Vanitas holds him tight. Tears fall against his neck, warm and wet, but he runs a hand through Ventus’s hair and hums deep in his chest. He hopes the sound is comforting. Ventus’s hands curl to fists against the fabric of his t-shirt, clinging to him for dear life.

This is that unexplainable force, too. Nothing can stop the tide, that steady push and pull of the water across the sand. Those barriers, those walls - they can never stand for long.

Vanitas lets the ball and chain be washed away by the surf, freeing them to move along the shores. Slowly, unsteadily, but moving all the same.

Later on, after they’ve muddled through a breakfast of cereal and watery coffee because Ventus used to never drink the stuff and Vanitas doesn’t know how to make enough for two, Ventus will edge into his field of vision.

“Hey… Vanitas?” he begins softly, hanging halfway out of the hallway.

“What,” Vanitas says, looking up from the computer situated on his lap.

“I got an extra toothbrush last time I got my teeth cleaned, and since I just changed my toothbrush head a few days ago, I don’t want to throw it away after using it once. Is it cool if I leave it here?”

Vanitas shoots him a flat look. “As long as the dogs don’t get to it and chew it up, I don’t really care?” he asks back. Ventus deserves to be mocked for that one, honestly.

A quiet triumph shines in Ventus’s eyes. “Okay, good. I have a couple of holders that stick to the mirror. Do you want me to put your toothbrush in one, too?”

“Does that mean I’ll get to use the mug I keep in there as an actual mug again?”

“Uh, yes?”

“Good. Bring the mug out for me when you’re done, will you?”

“Got it,” Ventus says, disappearing into the bathroom once more.

It isn’t until hours later, when Vanitas is stuck in traffic on his way to the rich neighborhoods of Pacific Palisades to continue working with an owner of a terrier mix with the worst separation anxiety he’s ever seen, does he realize what Ventus meant by that whole exchange.

He feels warm all over as the sunlight streaming in from his car window happily caresses his skin.

 

* * *

 

i.

Ventus is up to something and Vanitas can’t figure out what it is no matter how hard he tries. For a week straight, he frantically shushes Terra and Aqua at lunch. Almost like he’s afraid of them saying something they’re not supposed to. Every moment he spends not telling his friends to shut up is spent on his phone, staring at the screen and trying his hardest not to either smile or frown. The specific expression he has to combat changes depending on the day.

It isn’t the same look Ventus gets whenever he’s in the throes of a new relationship, but it’s close enough that Vanitas ends up warily asking him if he got the number of some dumb new crush of his. There’s a frantic fear in Ventus’s denial that makes Vanitas stop asking, some gravity behind the emotion that keeps Vanitas pressed to the earth.

It feels good, to know that Ventus doesn’t like anyone right now. It was hard enough dealing with Ventus’s crush of the week when Vanitas wasn’t certain about his own feelings. Now, it just feels impossible.

Still, Vanitas can’t figure out what Ventus is trying to pull.

His suspicion gives way to full-blown apprehension when he sees Ventus trying too hard to casually lean against the edge of the bike rack. There’s something hidden behind his legs that he shifts in front of when he notices Vanitas coming, but Vanitas can’t tell what it’s supposed to be.

More jarringly, there’s something sitting on the seat of Vanitas’s bike. Terror and adrenaline rush through his veins as he scrambles forward to figure out what it is, and more importantly, who he needs to fucking kill for messing with his bike. He doesn’t have any other way home besides this piece of scrap metal on wheels. He can count on one hand the number of people in his school who tolerate him, but every last one of them should know better than to fuck with him. They should know what’ll happen if they do.

“Oh jeez. I wonder what that thing on your bike could be?” Ventus asks, feigning complete innocence. Vanitas stops just inches from his bike as two realizations hit him.

First, the thing that’s on his bike is a Starbucks cup, kept firmly in place on top of his bike seat by a thick layer of plastic wrap.

Second, that the culprit for this crime is very clearly Ventus.

“I thought someone messed with my bike,” Vanitas spits out, ripping the plastic wrap away with a level of violence that is probably unnecessary, but makes him feel better. He snatches up the drink and uses his other hand to free his bike of the remaining plastic.

Ventus watches him closely, his face turning an increasingly bright shade of red. He clears his throat, but his voice sounds oddly shaky when he says, “Y-you should check the name on the cup. To, uh, make sure it’s yours.”

Vanitas does, turning the chilly cup over in his hands until he finds something scrawled on the side in black sharpie. The ink is hard to read against the dark brown liquid within, but Vanitas squints at it until the letters become legible.

“To Ventus’s prom date,” he reads. Vanitas looks over to see Ventus holding a large sign between his hands, watching him with a mixture of hope, terror, and excitement.

Ah. So that’s what he was hiding.

 _Prom would be ruff without you_ , the sign reads, each letter meticulously drawn with alternating black and gold markers. Underneath it is a shoddy drawing of a cartoon dog, surrounded by tiny hearts.

“Is that supposed to be my dog?” Vanitas asks.

Ventus does his best impression of a cherry. “I’m not good at drawing and Aqua refused to help me,” he mutters into the sign. Vanitas starts to laugh. Still red-faced, Ventus stomps his foot and scowls. “Just tell me if you’ll be my date already!”

Oh. That’s right.

Vanitas has seen the various prom proposals firing off around campus. This year’s prom is combined for the juniors and seniors, leading to an even higher amount of harried teenagers tricking each other into saying yes with elaborate stunts than normal years. Vanitas was perfectly fine with letting this stupid dance pass by the same way he’s left every high school dance to its own devices.

But Ventus wants him to be _his_ _date_.

Suddenly he understands why he’s overheard so many girls working themselves into frenzies after getting asked.

He takes a sip of the drink in his hand to hide his stupidly giddy smile. He’s never had Starbucks before, but the drink is a sweet chocolate flavor. He likes it.

“ _Vanitas_!” Ventus all but screeches.

Vanitas snickers around his straw and nods, butterflies and electricity and warmth all sending his stomach into pleasant flips, firing off within his insides like a meadow of wildflowers caught in a summer thunderstorm. Out of anyone Ventus could have asked, he asked _Vanitas_. He wouldn’t have gotten such a chocolatey drink or drawn that shitty excuse of a pitbull for anyone else.

And he didn’t do it in the middle of lunch, or in-between classes as streams of students rushed around him. No, he waited until after school, letting the river slow to a trickle and giving them something closer to privacy. Something more comfortable for Vanitas.

A surge of affection tears through him, all the more powerful as the sign drops to Ventus’s side. His eyes are filled with hope and sunshine. “Is that a yes?”

Vanitas takes another sip, the stupidest smile he’s ever worn threatening to take over his face once more. “Yeah. I’ll come with you.”

( _He has no fucking clue how he’ll convince Xehanort to let him go. Never mind getting the money to... what, rent a tux? Is that what people are supposed to wear to prom? It doesn’t matter. Ventus wants him there, and he’ll do whatever it takes to get the chance to stand at his side._ )

Ventus heaves out a massive sigh, letting his sign drop to the ground as he all but collapses against the bike rack. He rests a hand over his chest - his heart, Vanitas realizes with a bloom of warmth - and lets his head loll back towards the sky. “Oh my god. I was so afraid you would say no,” he breathes out.

Vanitas thinks about making fun of him. He usually would at this point, but he can’t think of anything other than the steady drumming of _I love you, I love you_ that beats within his chest.

Ventus nearly jolts in place, turning his attention back to Vanitas. “Wait! I want a selfie with you before you finish that and throw the cup away.” As if Vanitas isn’t going to clean this cup until it shines and hide it at the back of his dresser so he can read its words whenever he wants.

He’s at Vanitas’s side in an instant, phone in one hand and the other finding its way to Vanitas’s opposite shoulder. Vanitas is too overcome by shock to move.

It feels right, to have Ventus’s arm around him.

“C’mon Vanitas, move the cup. There’s no point if you can’t see the writing,” he chides gently, leaning into him. Vanitas wonders, a little hysterically, if this is how he’s going to die. His heart won’t stop racing.

Ventus’s hand squeezes his shoulder and it’s enough to get him to grin - full, unguarded, a little crooked compared to Ventus’s blindingly perfect smile - when Ventus snaps the photo. “Oh, the sign. My mom made me promise to get a picture with that, too. Here, let me just…” He slips away from a dazed Vanitas and runs over to a girl walking by them. She’s their year, she’s really loud, and her name is Yuffie. She went to a different middle school than they did. That’s all Vanitas knows about her.

But she follows Ventus as he dashes back to Vanitas’s side, picking up the sign on his way over. His phone is in her hands.

“Aww, you two look so happy! Super cute. Say cheese on three, okay? One, two… three!”

There’s no point in saying cheese, not when that arm loops around him once more. He wouldn’t be able to stop smiling long enough to say it, anyways.

 

* * *

 

iv.

Vanitas parks outside of Xion’s apartment the way every rational person in Los Angeles does - by boxing in some random car and flipping his hazard lights on. The weather is beautiful, sun shining overhead and warming him from head to toe. He rolls down his windows, letting the autumn air and year-round pollution filter into his car.

These late September days are his favorite. If Ventus wasn’t studying for his first O-Chem midterm of the quarter, or at least telling himself to start studying for said midterm, he probably would have dragged Vanitas to the beach. After so many years spent on the shores of Santa Monica, they’ve come to associate this kind of warmth with beach days.

Well, it isn’t always Santa Monica. Sometimes it’s Venice, where Vanitas will always ask Ventus why he smells so strongly of weed and Ventus will always angrily insist that the beach itself eternally smells like weed. Other times it’s Will Rogers, free of people and full of seashells, giving Ventus ample excuse to push Vanitas down until there’s sand all in his clothing. They went all the way up to Point Dume once, climbing along the cliffs that line the beach and threatening to shove each other off the path.

Maybe it’s just Ventus he associates with this kind of weather.

Almost twenty-four goddamn years old, and Vanitas is more of a sap than he’s ever been.

Xion hurries through the lobby of her apartment building, her scattered reflection bouncing off the mirrors that line half the lobby as she jogs. She’s dressed appropriately enough for a graveyard - black dress, black socks, black shoes, gray cardigan that is _definitely_ too cutesy to actually belong to her sloping over her shoulders - but that’s not any different from any other day. Between her and her roommates, Roxas is the only one with any color in his wardrobe that isn’t blood red. She looks around on the steps of the lobby, breaking into a smile when she finally notices Vanitas’s car.

Moments later, she’s in the passenger seat, strapped in and ready to go. “I’m excited for today,” she says, in lieu of a greeting. “I’ve been trying to figure out what we’re going to do all week, but I still have no idea.”

She’s a good kid. Prone to hiding herself away like a wounded animal when she gets upset as he learned this past summer when her job got rough, but a good kid.

An amazing friend.

He should really tell her.

“We’re going to a cemetery. If you want to back out, now’s your chance,” he says, unlocking the doors for emphasis. She looks confused, but she makes no move to unbuckle herself.

“Why would we need to go to a cemetery? You live right across the street from one.”

She isn’t wrong. Maybe there’s something poetic in the way he’s greeted by endless rows of tombstones whenever he steps outside of his apartment, but analyzing poetry has never been his strong suit. He’ll leave metaphors to the people who care about them. “Different cemetery. I actually know someone buried at this one.”

Xion grows quiet, pensive. This is the part he hates. “...Who?” she asks.

“My old man. And before you ask about a mom - probably have one, but didn’t know one. Aqua doesn’t count.”

Xion giggles softly, having interacted with Aqua enough times at this point to understand the reference. Not only are Xion and Aqua _not_ secret pen pals, they only interacted once before the graduation party at the end of last year. Vanitas takes that as a victory, given how many weird and esoteric connections the rest of his awful friends have to each other.

“Sorry for laughing. I’m sorry about your…” Xion pauses. She’s a smart one. “...Your old man.”

“It’s okay,” Vanitas says, the reply falling so easily from him that he doesn’t stop to think about it until he sees Xion’s fists clench in her lap.

“No,” she says, “it’s not.”

Vanitas can’t help but laugh. She’s not wrong, but that’s never what people say. They hum and they haw and they stammer over useless platitudes for a while. They don’t cut him down the way she just did. They’re so desperate to comfort him that they don’t bother to _actually_ pay attention to what he says and how he says it.

“It’s been… what, nine months since it happened? Eight since the funeral. Don’t ask me why I feel like going, because I’m still figuring that out. So now that you know, I’ll repeat it - last chance to back out.”

Still, Xion doesn’t unbuckle her seatbelt. She radiates the quiet intensity of the twilight sun; secure, stable, powerful in the way that the daylight usually isn’t. She doesn’t have the brightness that Ventus embodies. She’s too somber for that. Maybe that’s why she’s here, and not him.

“I’m coming,” she says with a finality that makes Vanitas lock the doors, flip his hazards off, and start his car in earnest. “I get it, you know,” she adds. “Or maybe you don’t know. I don’t talk about it much.”

“What, you’re a sad orphan too?”

Xion giggles softly. “Not quite. I still have my dad. But my mom passed when I was ten. So I get it. Losing a parent is hard.”

“I knew something was different about your reaction. Most people would have cooed at me like I was some dog trapped in a cage,” Vanitas says, putting the address into his GPS and setting his phone into its holder. They pull out of the maze of sprawling, shitty apartments and winding streets and turn onto Wilshire Boulevard. Vanitas sinks into the sprawl of traffic with ease, even as Xion still flinches as some asshole honks at some other asshole for existing. Give her another year of living here and she won’t even blink.

“Were you close to him?” Xion asks.

“Wanna know a secret?” Vanitas says, frowning as some guy in a Prius nearly slams into his front bumper trying to get to the on-ramp for the freeway. Vanitas slams his fist on his horn, pacified only when the other car speeds up to the speed it should have been going the entire time. What kind of idiot obeys speed limits?

“Okay.”

“The last time I spoke to him, I had just turned eighteen,” Vanitas says, finally merging onto the 405 freeway. For a Saturday morning, it’s surprisingly empty. They may get there in an hour and forty-five minutes, provided the other freeways aren’t the traffic nightmares they usually are. “That enough of an answer for you?”

Apparently it is, because Xion loses herself in her thoughts for the better part of an hour.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more fanart???? i can't handle this. i do not have the processing ability to handle the emotions getting fanart makes me feel, so i'll link it and cry a little. there is [this lovely illustration](https://twitter.com/FoLightening/status/1122174655383707651) from the pizza reunion back in chapter 17, and then a [GORGEOUS bust](https://twitter.com/wowmanymeows/status/1122101300894863360) of vanitas!! thank you so much for the amazing fanart! i am honored and blown away. 
> 
> and thank you as a whole for reading!!! i'm consistently blown away by the reception to this fic. 
> 
> anyways, we finally got to prom, which i am ridiculously excited about. i didnt go to my own prom so to prepare for this chapter and the next i watched a LOT of prom vlogs. i am now a prom expert. there's also a lot of xion this chapter (yay!!!! my daughter!) and another beach scene that isn't sad!

iv.

“Vanitas?”

“Yeah.”

“When… when did it happen? To your old man, that is,” Xion asks, somewhere after the exit sign for Diamond Bar. After a solid hour or driving, they’re almost out of LA County. Vanitas isn’t familiar with this particular city outside of the freeway exits he drives by and the uncomfortable knowledge that with its arrival also comes the start of the Inland Empire.

 _The Inland Empire, where dreams go to die_ , he had explained to Xion once over organic ( _ugh_ ) lattes in Hollywood. She could never understand, coming from the endlessly rolling hills and wineries of Sonoma, but she frowned at the right parts of his story.

She probably conflates the IE too much with the beautiful beaches of San Diego that Roxas and Naminé will happily gush over at any chance to really believe him. She _likes_ suburbia. She’s never once seen it as the jail cell it always felt like to Vanitas.

Then again, his situation is different from most people’s.

He hasn’t gone this far east since the funeral. It feels like a different world now, with the clear skies overhead and the faded green bushes that sprout along the sides of the road. Nothing at all like the hellish storm he drove through all those months ago. He doesn’t feel like the person who went through that, either.

He’s still there, somewhere within Vanitas. He’ll always be there. But Vanitas will carry him, carry his scars and his rage and his mistakes until that boy from before can look at the man he is now and feel safe.

Still, if Vanitas could have his way, he’d never drive further east of Diamond Bar ever again.

Xion’s still waiting for his answer, patiently quiet as he dwells on the finer points of geography and the inner machinations of himself instead of her question. “Last December.”

“That recently? That’s just a couple months before we became friends. I had no idea.” She sounds a little guilty. He doesn’t like it.

Vanitas makes a face as he changes into the carpool lane, zooming past a truck that fails to realize that following the flow of traffic always takes precedence over speed limits. It’s a good thing the roads are wider here than they are in LA proper, because these idiots would cause so many crashes with how carelessly they drift in their lines. “It’s weird to talk about. What, did you want me to bring up my tragic backstory the first time we hung out?”

Except he kind of did, just not in as many words. He rarely loses himself to the void now, but he was so fragile back then that all it took to fall into that pit was hear someone who vaguely sounded like the bastard. Xion didn’t know it at the time, but it still happened.

“If you did, I wouldn’t have blamed you,” Xion says, reminding him exactly why he’s always felt so comfortable in the twilight. She casts so many things in a softer light, making even his harsh darkness gentle. “It’s just…” she trails off, momentarily lost in her own thoughts, “Going through something like that changes you. It changes every single part of your life, even the parts that they never touched.”

“You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you.”

“I’ve had a lot of time to.”

Vanitas isn’t sure if he should apologize or not. Should he? Is that the right thing to do? Is Xion expecting an apology? Then again, she did exactly the same thing to him. Instead, he finds a question bubbling in his own throat. “Xion. Why didn’t you ever tell me about your mom before?”

That earns a small shrug. “It never came up,” she says simply. “And it was a long time ago. I don’t talk about it as much, but that doesn’t make it any less important.”

“Exactly!” He can hear the harsh relief in his own voice. Some sort of fierce joy rips through him, shocking him with its intensity. An equally intense disgust follows on its heels, ready to tear him apart with his claws.

“It’s nice, to talk to someone who gets it,” Xion adds softly. “I’ve talked to Roxas and Axel about it before, but… it’s not the same. I can’t explain it.”

He can’t, either. Feeling like he’s grasping at straws, he tries to justify the strange emotions battling within him. “It fucking sucks that it happened to us. But I don’t have to coddle you when I talk about it. That’s… nice.”

He can tell Ventus just about anything at this point and have Ventus accept it, but this is something that he could never fully understand. He’s never claimed to, which is for the best. He doesn’t need to understand it. He just has to be there.

Because Vanitas has other people who can understand.

He thinks there must be joy found in someone else knowing the most broken parts of himself, yet knowing how to handle those jagged edges without getting cut because they share the same knife-sharp points.

 

* * *

 

iii.

Vanitas is pretty sure Xion isn’t an early riser, judging from the sleepy fluttering of her eyelashes as she curls around the chilled cup of coffee in her hands. A box of still-untouched doughnuts sits between them, the lid opened to reveal an alternating pattern of pink and yellow puffs of sugar and carbs.

The sun has been up for a solid hour, but it still hangs close enough to the horizon that it can’t cut through the fog that rolls in with the waves. Without the light to let it explode into color, the sea flows between the border of gray and blue.

Still, the sand is crisp and crystalline beneath the towel they sit on, the smell of salt and coffee fills his nose, and Vanitas is certain that Eden itself has nothing on a Santa Monica morning.

Xion takes a sip of her coffee and hums. “This is so good! What was it called again? A mint…”

“Mojito,” Vanitas finishes for her.

Xion’s brow furrows and she stares at her drink as if someone just replaced it in the past two seconds. “Isn’t that an alcoholic drink?” she asks. “This doesn’t _taste_ like it’s spiked.”

“Do you _really_ think a shop would sell someone a boozy coffee at seven in the morning?” Vanitas asks. For emphasis, he adds, “Besides, remember what happened last time we tried to see an R rated movie? You got asked for ID. There’s no way you wouldn’t be carded at a bar on sight, let alone anywhere else.”

Xion laughs softly. Satisfied, she takes another sip of her coffee. “One day, Vanitas. I’ll get to buy my own drinks.”

Technically, that isn’t true. She got a job this past quarter and she’s eager to flaunt the extra money at every opportunity. The coffees in their hands - the iced coffee stuffed with mint in hers, and the large Mocha Tesora that he swears by in his - as well as the doughnuts were bought thanks to her most recent paycheck. He doesn’t really get what she does, especially he’s never heard of a job where she has to _study for it_ , but it works for her.

She had never been to Philz Coffee before, which was a fucking shame that he had to rectify immediately. For all the coffee he’s tried in LA, Philz remains his favorite. But Ventus only started drinking coffee a few months ago, so he’s never had the opportunity to share these drinks with someone else.

Vanitas loves the store too much to sit inside and flirt with the possibility of getting kicked out, so the beach it is.

Xion draws her knees up and balances her cup in the gap between her legs, freeing her hands so she can break off a piece of a pink doughnut. “And what flavor is this again?” she asks, poking the tiny flower baked into the pink glaze curiously.

“Huckleberry.”

“Like the book?”

“What? No, like the _berry_. You grew up in wine country. You’re supposed to know these things.”

Xion frowns at him. “Well, when you find a huckleberry wine, I’ll be happy to try some. Until then, I’ll be fine with all the grape vineyards that I live by,” she pauses, giggling as she adds, “Which is what wine is normally made out of. That’s something I _do_ know.”

Vanitas plucks the piece of doughnut right out of her hands and pops it into his mouth. He scowls at her, but she bursts into laughter, and he’s quick to follow.

The yellow doughnuts are lemon meringue flavored, covered in a fanciful dollop of fresh cream that’s now gotten all over the box. They swipe it off the edges of the cardboard. Xion accidentally swallows a fresh mint leaf in her attempt to drain every last drop of her cup. Most of all, they enjoy the quiet morning together. The waves slowly burst into color, the tide lazily lapping along the sand and looking more and more appealing as the air around them loses its chill.

“It’s getting pretty warm,” Xion says as she unties her shoes. He knows what she’s going to ask before she asks it. “Want to go in the water?”

“I don’t like swimming.”

“We don’t have to swim. Just dip our toes in the water,” Xion says, looking pointedly at Vanitas’s shorts and flip-flops. “You don’t even have to hike up your pants like I do. Please?”

She has a _powerful_ set of puppy-dog eyes.

Sighing, he kicks his flip-flops off. “Fine.” He gets up, waiting for her to carefully roll her jeans up to her shins, and they set off for the water. Vanitas pushes down the residual anxiety that billows up within him, filling him like a bloated piece of plastic left to drift amongst the waves.

This is the third time he’s actually been to the beach in the better part of five months. There was the bonfire, but no one had any reason to go into freezing water when the fire was right there. And before that…

...Was the day before the funeral, when the water stopped feeling the way it used to.

He’d be lying if he wasn’t scared. This place has always brought him such comfort. He doesn’t think he could handle losing it.

Xion stays a few steps ahead of him, but she’s careful to keep her pace measured so he can keep up. She walks backward, hands clasped behind her as she gives him an encouraging smile. She’s been doing that more often, lately - something about practicing for all the tours she’ll have to give to the families of incoming freshmen for her job.

(He _really_ doesn’t get her job. Each time she describes it, it’s for an entirely separate role. But if it makes her happy, then more power to her, he guesses.)

At least her smile _is_ encouraging. She hops and lets out a tiny yelp as the tide rushes over her toes. “It’s colder than I thought!” she says, giggling. “But it’s nice.”

Vanitas stops right at the line where the sand turns wet and compact, watching the water greedily steal away Xion’s footprints. That anxiety from before is still there, clenching his throat shut, but Xion gestures for him to come forward.

So he does, because his friend wants to share this experience with him.

The water brings cool relief as it splashes over his legs, giving him the courage to step in a little further than where Xion’s stopped. Seafoam clings to his calves, greeting him like a lover eager to see his return. He feels a smile come to his face more than he tries to summon it, prompting Xion to laugh yet again.

“See? It’s nice!”

Still grinning, he kicks a little bit of the surf at her. Droplets spray against her clothes and she shrieks, hands flying to her face to protect herself. If she thinks that’s going to help, it won’t. He waits for the tide to rush to him again and lets the water eagerly spill into his cupped hands. He closes the gap between them and dumps it on her head.

“ _V_ _anitas_!” she shrieks, his name broken apart by her laughter.

“Come on, since when did a little water hurt anyone? You’re the one who wanted to play in the waves, Xion.”

He’s too busy talking that he doesn’t notice her retaliation. He feels it first, the cold water splashing into his face and getting salt into his mouth. He shakes his head, feeling entirely like a dog drying off after getting wet and listens to Xion’s laughter carry itself much further than their tiny piece of the beach.

“It was only fair,” she says. Her defense is weak, but he’ll let it stand. Her bangs are plastered to her face, much like his own. It feels like enough to end their small battle, leaving them to instead fend off the heat streaming down overhead by relying on the gentle coolness on their legs.

They start walking along the shore, letting the tide chase after them like children playing tag as they go. Joggers run along the pathways branching just past the sand. Skaters weave past them and people with their dogs lounge in the grass. No one but the locals come to the beach this early in the morning, lending it back the atmosphere that made Vanitas decide to stay here for so long in the first place.

He loves it all fiercely and without abandon: the palm trees, the sand, the small patches of grass and the glassy buildings that it leads to.

But most of all, he loves the sunlight, and the waves, and the way the light turns the blue to endless, glittering sapphire.

It feels nice, to have such a love so uncomplicated.

Xion keeps her eyes on the ground, always quick to dart down to inspect any shells that the tide leaves behind. After the fourth time she does it, Vanitas finally feels the need to figure out why. “Why bother with shells here? There are better beaches in Malibu if you want to look for seashells. We could go this weekend after I’m done watching the kid.”

( _More and more, his Saturday mornings are being taken up by watching Lilo and her dog so her sister can pick up extra shifts at her job. He’s stopped taking the money, since he doesn’t need it as much as they do. An inconvenience, but with Ventus eager to volunteer himself to be subject to a six-year-old’s whims as well, it’s easier to say yes._

 _He just wishes Ventus would have been as eager to accept the invitation when Vanitas invited him here. The yes that Vanitas was certain would escape his lips turned to a half-hearted apology when he found out that Xion would be there, too._ )

“It’s okay. The shell doesn’t have to be nice,” Xion says, but her voice changes as something else occurs to her. “Wait, didn’t I tell you?”

“Would I be asking if you had?”

“I guess not. It’s Naminé’s birthday soon, so I’ve been thinking of what gift to get her.”

“Xion, you can’t give your girlfriend a shitty shell for her birthday.”

“I wouldn’t!” Xion says quickly. “She has a pair of shell earrings, but they’re both broken at the edges. She likes them more _because_ they’re broken, I think. So giving her a pretty necklace with a broken shell as its centerpiece would be nice, right?”

“When you put it that way, it doesn’t sound too terrible.”

“That’s why I’m not too picky over the shell. The problem is that I don’t know anything about making jewelry,” she adds with a sigh. “Do you?”

He thinks instantly of Aqua, and of the metal charms that he finally fixed to Void and Gear’s collars the week before. “No, but I know someone who does. I’ll give you her number.”

“Thank you, Vanitas! You’re the best.”

Xion doesn’t quite shine when she’s happy.

She glows.

And he’s content to let her.

 

* * *

 

 i.

Preparing for prom, as Vanitas learns, is a pain in the ass.

Ventus wants them to share a color scheme, because that’s what dates (and every single time Vanitas so much as thinks that word he has to suppress a grin) are supposed to do apparently, but neither of them can agree on a color.

“What about… gold and silver? Gold bow tie and silver vest,” Ventus debates during the few minutes before the teacher will call their calculus class to order.

“And where are we supposed to find that, huh? My budget is whatever I can get from Ross,” Vanitas remarks. He’s started squirreling away money to pay for his clothes. Ventus asked, so he’s responsible for buying the tickets. If he wants go to out to eat beforehand, Vanitas figures that it shouldn’t be hard to make him foot that bill as well.

“Fine! Red and green.”

“Is the theme Christmas? Are you Santa’s little helper?”

Ventus groans. “Why are you so difficult!?”

“You signed up for this by asking me.”

“Yeah, I did,” Ventus says, relenting with a tiny smile. It takes all of Vanitas’s willpower not to die on the spot. Ventus glances at him, staring directly into his eyes like he’s searching for something. It’s weird enough to make the warmth curling within Vanitas fizzle out, replaced by an intense desire to keep making fun of him. “Blue and gold,” he says.

“...Are you seriously going to base what we wear off our _eye colors_.”

“I’ll wear gold, and you wear blue. I’m certain you can find at least one blue thing at Ross. If not, we can go to Macy’s or something and get them together. Okay?”

“Do we have to get pocket squares?”

Ventus frowns, considering the possibility. “...Nah. But we do have to get boutonnieres.”

“We have to get _what_.”

Ventus is quickly turning red. Vanitas is too confused to fully appreciate it. “Flowers, Vanitas! Come on. My mom said dates always have matching boutonnieres. Or like, usually I guess it’s a corsage and a boutonniere, but corsages are usually for girls and it’s easier to pin a flower to our jacket than it is to tie it around our wrist anyways.”

“...Fine. But you have to get it.”

“Fine!”

Class starts. The lesson is boring as hell, just a continuation of more complex integrals that Vanitas solves with ease, but occasionally Ventus will shyly glance over at him and mouth something that Vanitas is pretty sure is _we’re going to prom!_

So it’s worth it, all of it.

Ventus, ever the dutiful date, seeks Vanitas’s input on most of the planning. Are they going to rent a car? They both have driver’s licenses, but there’s no way in hell Vanitas could ever get his hands on a car and Ventus is too embarrassed to drive his mom’s van or his dad’s bug around. Should they get a limo instead, since Ventus will most likely want to go with his dumb friends and their dumb dates? They both agreed on black jackets and pants - what about the undershirt? Is that white? Are they really going to wear vests? What about dinner - will they eat before prom or can they trust the food at prom? Are they going to take photos beforehand?

Most of these questions end in arguments that go absolutely nowhere, and they only resolve when Ventus gets so frustrated that he gives up on talking to Vanitas and asks his mom for advice instead.

Vanitas starts spending his days after school sneaking out of the house to beg his neighbors for chores to do for money. He cleans bathrooms, mows lawns, and walks a large number of dogs for crisp ten and twenty dollar bills. The more he can save up, the better chance he has of buying a nice outfit instead of squeezing himself into the blazer and slacks he grew out of last year.

Plus, he has to make enough money to bribe the nurse into staying over that night so Vanitas can be out however long he wants. Xehanort may let him go out and about for a couple of hours if he's ridiculously lucky, but an entire night is out of the question without someone there.

The nurse agrees to stay over for a hundred bucks, provided he doesn’t have to sleep on the couch. Vanitas grits his teeth so hard he can feel them grind into each other, but he relents.

With a plan firmly established, Xehanort agrees with surprisingly little fuss when Vanitas finally does work up the courage to ask. He bows so quickly that he nearly gives himself whiplash, then rushes back to his room to find his phone and text Ventus the news in all-caps.

 _HE SAID YES_ is all Vanitas writes. Ventus likes emojis, but Vanitas doesn’t have an iPhone like him and all he’ll receive are boxes instead of the faces that he sends everyone else. Ventus sends him text emoticons instead, and the sight of them always makes him warm.

_Awesome!!! :) I was worried you wouldn’t be able to go._

_Me too._

_Man, I’m so excited! :D Does this mean I’ll finally get to see you in clothes that actually fit?_

_That’s what I’m saving up for, yeah._

_LOL, don’t I feel lucky <3 _

Ventus probably doesn’t mean anything by it, not with the ways he spams emojis on everything he touches, but just the sight of those two characters on his phone’s tiny screen is enough to mix with the rolling giddiness that makes his stomach keep flipping. He snatches a pillow off his bed and chokes the life out of it as he screams into the soft fabric.

Void hops onto his bed and nudges his hip with her nose, whining softly. He loosens his death grip on the pillow just enough to reach down and pat her head.

Their group for prom ends up being eight people, which is six too many. Of course Ventus would want to go with Aqua and Terra, given that it’s their senior year and Ventus is dead-set on sending them off with something fun. Vanitas doesn’t see the point, since they’re not even _leaving_. They both deferred their enrollment to the same college Ventus has rambled about going to for the past three years, so they can all enter together. They’ll still be around, just not at school.

Aqua is bringing her girlfriend, who goes to some fancy private school that’s too small to host a decent prom and wants to see what it’s like. Vanitas is still trying to figure out if her name is Cindy or if it’s Ella, though he figures he can just ignore her for all of prom and never truly learn her name.

Aqua badgered Terra into finding someone to go with so he wouldn’t be alone, so he’s going as friends with some other senior that Vanitas remembers from his days of haunting their old middle school lunch table. Vanitas is pretty certain that the only reason why they agreed to go together is so they can commiserate over how they didn’t get to ask out the girls they wanted to go with.

That’s what you get for being too chicken to ask, Leon.

Rounding out the group is the girl that Leon failed to ask out in time, Rinoa. She and that Yuffie girl are also going as friends. Recently they’ve started to crash their lunches sitting on the planter, dominating the entire time as they also debate about every aspect of their prom experience. They’re even more vicious than himself and Ventus. It’s kind of terrifying.

Girls are terrifying.

Vanitas spends way too much time shopping at the closest Ross for discounted formal wear that isn’t stained or ripped. When Xehanort demands to know why his grocery trips are taking longer than usual, he stammers out something about there only being one working checkout line. He starts spending the drives there desperately hoarding more excuses to use.

The days when he gets back and Xehanort has fallen asleep are the easiest. He doesn’t have to hide bags of clothes one article at a time when he sneaks by his eternally open door.

The day of is _also_ a massive pain in the ass. Vanitas wakes up with a giant zit right in the middle of his forehead. He spends half the day with toothpaste drying over the mark because some clickbait article said it could reduce redness, only to wash the stuff off and see it still as awful as it was before. He’s able to style his hair in just a way to cover most of it. He really hopes Ventus won’t be able to see it.

At least getting dressed isn’t bad. White shirt, black slacks, black jacket, sea-blue bowtie and a questionable gold vest Ventus must have fished out of the garbage can in Macy’s. He has actual dress shoes but no polish to make them shine, so he settles for another Googled home remedy of oil, dabbed onto the leather and pushed around with a rag that he thinks used to be a t-shirt he grew out of years ago.

He spends the better part of an hour watching tutorials on Youtube on how to tie a bowtie. He also spends the better part of an hour re-tying the fucking bowtie because he can’t get it right.

His phone steadily goes off the entire time, buzzing with texts from their entire prom group as they share updates. Ventus refused to remove him from the group chat.

But if he puts up with all this, then he’ll get to see Ventus in a suit with his own eyes, and it’ll be a sight that not even the fancy photographer hired for his brother’s wedding could compare to.

The nurse arrives twenty minutes before Ventus is supposed to come by to pick him up. Vanitas takes that time to change his sheets and make the nurse swear again that he will stay the night and that he won’t put the hours on the timesheet. Once the money is in the nurse’s hands, Vanitas feels himself relax the smallest bit. His part of the deal is done.

Xehanort is asleep, thank god. As the nurse slowly gets him to actually lay down instead of sleep sitting up in his bed like he usually does, Vanitas waits by the door, checking his phone every two minutes just in case Ventus texts him. Excitement and fear fight for dominance within him, a battle with no clear winner. He feels ready to throw up. He wants to see Ventus so badly, and the realization of just how powerful that desire is makes his fear win out. He’s over here, sitting on his couch and pining like a complete moron. Ventus probably just asked him because he knew that Vanitas wouldn’t go to prom otherwise. Of course Ventus likes him, they’ve been best friends for years, but there’s still a gap separating their feelings-

-The doorbell rings and Vanitas yelps. From his room, he hears Void bark in response. Feeling his face grow hot, he vaults himself over the back of the couch and scrambles to open the door. He pushes the screen door open shortly after and Ventus steps back just in time to avoid getting hit in the face by it. Vanitas silently berates himself for being an idiot, but the urge to see Ventus unobstructed by a shitty metal screen was too powerful not to obey.

And oh.

_Oh._

He’s _beautiful_.

His jacket and slacks are sleek, the black fabric giving off a slight glimmer in the afternoon sunlight. The collar of his undershirt peeks out from underneath, gold buttons the exact same color as the golden bowtie expertly tied around his neck. A blue vest peeks out from underneath his jacket, and Vanitas realizes with a shock of heat that they really are the same sea-blue as Ventus’s eyes. He couldn’t tell from the pictures Ventus had sent him.

His hair is tamed in a similar way to Vanitas’s, messy spikes swooping into a form that’s less chaotic than usual. There’s a bump on his chin that looks just a shade off from his skin tone, which Vanitas recognizes a little belatedly as a zit covered with concealer.

“Oh. Oh, wow,” Ventus breathes out, pursing his lips as his hands slide up to cover his face. Vanitas barely resists the urge to rip them away, only stopping when he sees a gap open between Ventus’s fingers. He watches that lone iris trail up and down, then up again.

Is.

Is Ventus.

Is Ventus _checking him out_?

“Y-you look good. Really good,” Ventus stammers out.

Vanitas feels like he’s ready to explode. “Yeah. You do too,” he somehow manages to get out. He feels like the wind just got knocked out of his chest, like they’re ten again and practicing flipping each other onto the grass. He felt a similar daze then, staring up listlessly at the sky as Ventus’s head came into his view to block out the searing light of the sun.

He was always just as bright, but easier on his sensitive eyes.

Ventus’s hands creep down until they’re only covering his mouth and he takes a deep breath. “I really wish I hadn’t let my mom drive me here,” he mutters, glancing back to the steadily rumbling car that waits in Vanitas’s driveway. “I’m so stupid.”

“What? Why?” Vanitas hears himself ask.

Ventus stammers out a series of consonants before shaking his head. What Vanitas can see of his face is bright red. “Look,” he eventually manages to get out, “Let’s just. Go back to my house. Everyone else is meeting us there for pictures.”

He turns to go, but Vanitas remains frozen in place. He’s seen Ventus fall head over heels for enough crushes to know all the signs, and for the first time he’s allowing himself to entertain the possibility that just maybe these tells are meant for him. That maybe the title of _date_ is more than just a formality.

When Ventus notices that Vanitas isn’t following him, he stops in place with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. He returns to Vanitas, hand reached out halfway towards him. He’s clearly hesitating. After a single, terrifying moment, his hand settles on Vanitas’s shoulder.

Vanitas is pretty much certain this will be how he dies. The last feeling he will ever experience is the gentleness in how Ventus’s fingers trail down his arm and wrap around his hand. He leads a dazed Vanitas to the backseat of his mom’s car, opening the door and ushering him in like the gentlemen he usually isn’t. Vanitas breaks away from his hand and slides in, his body running on autopilot. Ventus falls into the seat next to him, still as red-faced as before.

He feels Ventus’s hand slowly come to rest over his own, sending another shock through his body. The sound of laughter, coming from the woman in the front seat, sends a different kind of shock through his nerves. Ventus jumps away from him, shrieking something unintelligible at his mother in a high-pitched voice that should have been impossible for him to reach after going through puberty.

All she does is laugh harder and tell him something in Italian. Ventus has taken the language for the past three years, so he’s even able to get into a clunky, shrieking argument with her as she pulls out of the driveway. His face still remains the most beautiful shade of red; Vanitas can’t help but stare blankly at him. He can’t understand what they’re saying for the most part, but there’s enough overlap from his two years of Spanish that he can pick out a few words.

Something about hands, and a partner, and a… hotel…?

Vanitas does not have the brainspace to think of anything more, still too dazed at the terrifying possibility that Ventus might have feelings for him to attempt to translate between two languages he doesn’t really know.

Ventus’s house is tiny bungalow no bigger than the one Vanitas lives in. Ventus’s mom releases them as she goes to grab her camera. The moment she’s out of earshot, Ventus leans in close to Vanitas, close enough that Vanitas can feel his breath on his ear when he whispers, “Oh my god, I don’t know how I’m gonna live through these photos.”

“Same,” Vanitas whispers back, though he’s just not sure how he’s going to live through this night.

Something seems to strike Ventus in that moment and he leans back with a dazzling smile. Vanitas wonders briefly if the sunlight cresting across the sea could compare to this. “Hey! Since you’re here, come see my room!”

“You better not close that door, young man!” his mom sings from another room.

“ _Mom_!” Ventus screeches. The implications are lost on Vanitas, overpowered by the shiver that escapes him as Ventus grabs his hand again (again!) and pulls him into another room. True to his mom’s warning, the door stays wide open.

Ventus’s bedroom isn’t any bigger than Vanitas’s. The biggest difference is that Ventus’s room actually looks well lived-in and well loved. His bedsheets are covered in stars, a perfect match to the glow in the dark plastic that dots across his ceiling. He has real furniture, not just second-hand stuff obviously picked up from yard sales and clear plastic bins bought from Target. A star lamp and a small clock decorate his nightstand, while framed photos - one of  himself, Terra, Aqua, and Eraqus, and one of his family all at his brother’s wedding - claim dominion over his dresser. He’s shoved them slightly off to the side, as if leaving room third frame, though this one is still waiting to be filled with another memory. His desk is cluttered with things, leaving just enough room for his laptop to sit in the middle of the chaos.

Vanitas didn’t go in here the last - and only other - time he’s been here. He isn’t sure why Ventus is so eager to show him now, but he appreciates it.

Still holding his hand, Ventus begins to lead Vanitas around the room, picking up trinkets off his desk and bookshelf to show off to Vanitas. There are unsurprisingly few books on his bookshelf, most of the space taken up by trophies from all the various judo tournaments Ventus has been to over the years. Vanitas worms his way out of Ventus’s grasp to pick up one of the trophies with both hands, holding it like it was made of pure gold and not spray-painted bronze.

He has at least ten of the things and not a single one of them is for participation. They’re all more official than that. First place. Third place. Second place.

But mostly? First place.

“Oh, those old things? Sheesh. It’s kind of embarrassing,” Ventus says, and Vanitas can hear him shift in an aborted attempt to scratch the back of his head. He does it when he gets embarrassed, sometimes. He’s probably stopping himself now so he doesn’t mess up his hair. “...I couldn’t have done it without you,” he adds softly.

Vanitas nearly flings it back on the shelf, but he’s able to hold back the urge at the very last moment. He sets the trophy carefully back into its place, the bottom fitting perfectly into a small patch of wood free of the thin layer of dust that clings to the whole thing. Spray-painted or not, the trophies are duller than they should be and in bad need of a polishing. Ventus really needs to clean.

Thinking that makes him uneasy in a way he can’t explain.

He forces his attention lower down, focusing instead on the books that reside at the bottom of the structure. Some of them he recognizes from school; giant test prep booklets stand alongside textbooks rented from the school whose spines barely hold its pages together. Below that is a row of books solely about animals. There’s also a shelf of small metal and wood sculptures; Vanitas recognizes a few of them from Terra’s projects in woodshop.

“So? Do you like it?”

Ventus’s face is slimmer than it used to be, the baby fat that once clung to his cheeks having long since faded away. His chin is slightly sharper now, his mouth thinner and his nose longer, but the eagerness in his eyes holds the same shine as the light that lived in his six-year-old self, holding an umbrella out to shield Vanitas from the rain that had already soaked him to the bone.

And maybe for a moment, Vanitas can pretend they’re both little kids again too. That he can ignore the feeling that this should have happened much longer ago, that they could have had years of sleepovers together and carpools to judo tournaments.

That half of these trophies could have gone to live on Vanitas’s dresser instead.

Vanitas always did win half of the fake matches they’d stage. He wonders if he could have ever won a real one.

Too late now, he guesses.

Ventus’s excitement gives way to worry. “Vanitas?” he asks, stepping towards him. “You okay?”

“...Yeah. I’m fine. It’s nice.”

Ventus isn’t convinced, but he can tell the atmosphere has shifted and that badgering Vanitas for more information is useless. He shifts awkwardly, looking around his room as if it’ll conveniently provide him with a change of topic.

His room doesn’t help with that. His mom, however, does. “Boys! Come out to the living room! I found the camera!”

Ventus sighs, but there’s nothing but fondness in the roll of his eyes. He nods towards the open door and Vanitas follows him out, ignoring the chill of regret that seeps into his bones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> important things i have to point out because it made me lose my shit when i realized it: the colors van and ven choose for prom are their school colors in the future >:3c in my house we bleed blue and gold


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more fanart? end me. gin did an [AMAZING doodle](https://twitter.com/ventuslatte/status/1123093879752802304) from the prom scene last chapter and it's left me in tears, it's so cute and perfect!!! please go check it out!!!
> 
> anyways. here's another ven interlude. ven's mom is the real mvp here, honestly.

_b._

Ven didn’t mean to start crying in his mom’s car. Really, he didn’t! She drove all the way out to west LA from Rancho Cucamonga _during rush hour_ just so she could see him. She even bought him a nice dinner. Or, well. California Pizza Kitchen is pretty nice, he supposes.

That’s beside the point. Things were fine until they parked in front of Hedrick Hall, the towering high-rise of his dorm filling him with a strange anxiety. Then she pulled a bar of fancy chocolate out of her purse and asked him to give it to Vanitas on her behalf and Ven, like a total moron, thought about how he had originally planned to have dinner with Vanitas.

Except Vanitas had plans to get dinner with the freshman boy and one of the girls that he’s tried to regale Ven with stories about. He’s pretty sure she’s one of the girls he briefly saw in his apartment. He asked Ven to join, but he just… couldn’t.

Of course his mom, being who she is, immediately parked in a long term lot and spent twenty bucks to she could follow her sobbing son up to his dorm room and smother him in motherly comfort. He feels a little bad about that. Not bad enough to stop her, but still.

Ven’s dorm looks almost exactly like Terra and Aqua’s room. He has a single bed pushed off to the side (which isn’t big enough to cuddle Vanitas in; he tried about a year ago during a spontaneous afternoon nap and was rewarded with a shove out of his own bed and onto the floor when Vanitas moved in his sleep), a small couch (where Terra will nap during nights on duty in-between his rounds patrolling the building), and some other assorted furniture. There’s a nice desk, its shelves covered in trinkets his friends have made him, school gear, and souvenirs from his trips to Italy over the years. A couple closets are built into the walls by the doors. A few video game posters adorn his walls, messily kept in place by pushpins he bought from Daiso his freshman year. A beanbag chair sits in the corner, adopted from his childhood room.

He really likes it. It feels homey.

Right now, his biggest concern is snatching the box of tissues off his desk and plopping it into his lap as he flops down onto his couch. His mom sinks down next to him, rubbing his back in soothing little circles and cooing phrases in Italian that his brain is too frazzled to pick out.

Ven hates crying. He doesn’t do it often, but once the tears start, they take forever to stop. He sounds like a little kid when he cries, sobs and gasps escaping him like they’re being plucked right out of his throat. He feels even more childish now, memories flooding into him of all the times he sat with his mom just like this as a kid.

He used to sit in her lap, back then. Back before he was taller than her by a solid four inches.

One memory in particular stands out to him, from when he was ten and still trying to navigate a friendship with the starlight boy he suddenly found at his side. He hadn’t done anything particularly offensive, he thought. All he had done was ask Vanitas why all the shoes he owned were constantly dirty and falling apart. Vanitas had grown so defensive, so _furious_ , that he refused to talk to Ven for two whole days.

Ven went home crying that second day, and his mom took him into her lap and rubbed his back until he could speak to her about what reduced him to tears. He wouldn’t understand her explanation until years later.

Once again, she patiently waits for him to gather enough of his composure to tell her what’s wrong. He grabs a tissue, blows his nose, and finds his throat loose enough to speak. “Ugh,” he says softly, tossing the tissue into his trash can, “Sorry, Mom. I know you wanted to get home.”

She pulls him into a hug. “ _Mi amore,_ don’t you _dare_ apologize! What kind of mother would I be if I left you here to cry alone?”

“A bad mother?”

“The worst mother! Now, do you want to tell me what’s broken your heart?”

He lets out a sigh that rattles him to his bones. “I remembered that I wanted to get dinner with Vanitas tonight, is all.”

“Oh no…” she clicks her tongue softly, murmuring something under her breath that he can’t decipher. “I thought you were speaking again?”

“We are! He just…” Ven trails off, feeling more childish than he thought possible as he crosses his arms and frowns, “...He had plans.”

“Plans that he didn’t tell you about?”

“No, not that. He even invited me, but I told him no.”

She stops rubbing Ven’s back. “Why would you do that? You said I could come visit you because you were free, you silly little thing!”

“Mooooom,” Ven whines, scooting away from her. “Don’t say it like that!”

“I will say it however I like, young man! I do not understand what the problem is. He invited you, didn’t he?”

“Yeah…”

“And yet you’re sad that you’re not spending time with him?”

“Yeah…”

“Because you rejected his offer?”

Ven feels himself flush. Why does his mom have to be so smart? “Yeah…”

“Ven, _why_ _?_ ” She sounds exasperated at this point. He kind of wants to die. There are very few things in the world worse than her disappointed voice and what he hears now is way too close for comfort.

“I don’t know! I just- I don’t know, I feel weird around his friends! The way he talks to them and about them is so different from how he always talked to Terra and Aqua! And he spends so much time with them, Mom. You should see how hard he laughs at Snapchats from them. I’ve never seen anything like it, not towards anyone who wasn’t me!” Ven explains in a rush, a confusing swirl of emotions propelling his frantic words forward.

“Sounds like someone is jealous, _mi amore_.”

“That doesn’t make any sense! I _know_ he still likes me, Mom. Every time I tell him I miss him, he says it back! I- I think he might even love me. Maybe not as much as I do, but enough that I think he wants to, you know, _be_ with me in the future. And like- okay, so he’s started _babysitting_ this little girl who lives next door to him, and he asked me to help him out! I’m not jealous towards _her._ She’s _six_.”

She hums thoughtfully. He has no idea why. “If only feelings were that simple to sort out. They’re almost always messy. Plus,” she pauses, giving him a look he definitely doesn’t like, “It seems like that’s not the only thing you’re feeling. What are you so afraid of?” she asks softly, ruffling his hair the same way she used to when he was little.

His family has always been affectionate with each other. It’s a habit he’s eagerly picked up, just as he’s eager to show his love through touch.

( _Especially to Vanitas, who practically wouldn’t understand Ven’s feelings any other way. That, and there’s something about him that draws Ven forever closer. He’s magnetic. Since the day Ven realized he was in love, he’s never been able to resist that pull._

_Oh, if Vanitas ever lets Ven actually kiss him? Once he starts, he’d never want to stop._ )

He’s told Vanitas what he was afraid of before. And he can’t deny that he’s still afraid of it, as silly as it is. “He’s so much happier, Mom. He’s changed a lot over four months! And I feel like this keeps happening. He’ll change so much, and I’m always just… me. The same I’ve always been. What if this is too much of a change? What if I’m no good for him anymore?” He takes a deep breath, voicing a fear that he couldn’t bring to Vanitas earlier. “What if I’m the one hurting him?”

The only reason why his mom doesn’t immediately burst into laughter is the hitch in Ven’s voice, another round of sobbing threatening to break through the surface. He’s certain of it. What she does instead is hug him, rubbing his back once more. “You already know my feelings on what happened at the beginning of the year, Ven.” And he does. How he really wasn’t doing Vanitas any favors by sacrificing his own classes to help him. Vanitas is really good at seeming put together, even when he isn’t.

Ven just falls apart, and everyone can see it.

_You can’t help someone else if you leave your own body to rot, mi amore. There’s such a thing as being too selfless_ , she had told him then.

“But we’re always changing. All of us. Even if it doesn’t feel that way, you are,” his mom says. Why is she so wise? Man, he takes after her in a lot of ways, but that wisdom isn’t part of it. He never has any clue what he’s doing, period. “You hold so much love in your heart, Ven. I know you’re happy to pour it out on him any chance you get, and that’s a beautiful thing. But you can’t be someone’s everything, _mi amore_ , and for a long time, that’s exactly what you were. He’s a young man worth sharing with the world, as feisty as he can be,” she says, laughing to herself. Ven manages to crack a smile. “Just because you’re not his only special person doesn’t make you stop being special.”

What Ven wouldn’t do to know for certain that the pull he feels is just as strong on the other side.

“Yeah… I guess.”

“It sounds to me like he wants you to meet his friends. He wants to share his own gift with you, Ven. Why don’t you let him?”

When she puts it that way, it’s hard to argue. “Yeah… yeah, you’re right. Jeez, Mom. Why are you always so smart?” he chuckles softly, though it turns to a full-fledged laugh as she wraps him in a tight hug. He doesn’t feel childish like this, even if he feels childlike. It’s not bad.

He feels so lucky to have her. His dad too, of course. Even if they aren’t as close, he’s good, too.

“Because I’m your mother, that’s why!” she says, laughing with him.

( _The next time Vanitas brings up an invitation, it’ll be in his bedroom. Ventus will look at the painted eyes of the boy who has his heart and see how someone else’s hand managed to capture the beauty no one but Ven has cherished for years. He’ll know, then, that there are others who can finally see the shining parts of Vanitas that Ven’s known about since the day he held out an umbrella to shield a sopping wet kid._

_And he’ll say yes, because Vanitas deserves it._ )


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> even MORE fanart??? i cannot keep doing this, you all are too nice!!!! i can't begin to explain how honored and how amazed i am that people like this fic enough to make their own work inspired by it. but there is [this adorable comic](https://twitter.com/littlemay528/status/1124407846710288384) from the prom scene, [this art](https://twitter.com/_spacejamtwo/status/1123826935216340992) that makes my heart hurt, and [this other art](https://twitter.com/jennifercrowart/status/1123902657696022528) that ALSO make my heart hurt!
> 
> in other news, the meat of this fic is finally all written. there are still some parts i need to tweak, but the actual writing is done! it feels good. this is officially the longest work i'll have ever written, and that's pretty cool to think about.

iii.

Ventus takes to Lilo and her awful dog like an enabling fly to honey. Their first interaction happens when Ventus gets to the door before Vanitas can the day they’re supposed to watch her. The next thing Vanitas knows, he’s being stared down by two pairs of eyes - ocean blue and black - and two equally pouty faces, begging him to take them both to McDonald’s for breakfast.

Lilo insists they have to go, because Stitch gets cranky when he goes too long without hashbrowns. Vanitas spends the next ten minutes telling Lilo for the fiftieth fucking time that no, dogs shouldn’t eat Mcdonald’s hashbrowns. Like the forty-nine previous times, she’s too stubborn to listen. The next thing he knows, Ventus is dropping Vanitas’s keys into his hand and he’s getting pushed out of his own apartment so they can get food.

When the day ends, Nani picks Lilo up with her endless thanks and that harried energy that reminds Vanitas too much of what it feels like to be at the end of your rope with nothing else to hold onto.

He refuses to accept her payment. She needs it more than he does.

The door closes shut behind the sisters and their weird fucking dog, and Vanitas turns to Ventus. He gives himself a moment to bask in his warm gaze, but his phone vibrates in his pocket. That’s right. He has an offer to make.

“Xion and Roxas are on campus studying. I’m going to join them. You want to come along?”

Simple. Direct. Easy.

Beneficial, because Vanitas spent all of last night enduring Ventus’s complaints over his half-finished study guide and this will be the perfect opportunity to force him to finish it. Plus, Xion’s eager to meet him.

Just like the last three times Vanitas offered, Ventus shakes his head and makes some bullshit excuse about studying better in his dorm. It’s not enough of a lie to call him out on it - when Ventus really needs to work, he does best when he’s in his dorm - but something about it feels off.

Things with Ventus are not perfect. Far from it.

But he’s _here_ , and Vanitas can pass by him as he takes up Vanitas’s couch while on a video call with his niece as they play Minecraft together, and Vanitas can smack at his spikes to get a four-year-old to laugh at her uncle’s expense, and that’s more than they’ve had in a long time.

As Ventus busies himself with telling her what materials they need to collect so they can keep building the castle she’s set her heart on, Vanitas pushes Ventus’s legs off the couch and claims the edge of it for himself.

With a scowl aimed at him over the top of his laptop, Ventus kicks his feet into Vanitas’s lap.

Vanitas grins. Minecraft or not, this is war.

He drags his finger along the sole of Ventus’s foot, earning a started yelp from Ventus and a kick to Vanitas’s shoulder that was worth the way Ventus nearly flings himself off the couch in his attempt to get away. Really, it’s his fault for having ticklish feet.

“ _Zio Ven!_ ” his niece gasps from his computer as Ventus scrambles to right his laptop. With an even harsher scowl, he shoves his foot against Vanitas’s thigh in a half-assed kick.

“Sorry, Chiara. _Someone_ is being a big jerk,” he explains to his laptop. He aims another kick for Vanitas, but Vanitas manages to dodge this one before it connects.

“Don’t listen to him, Chi!” Vanitas shouts. “He started it.”

Ventus rolls his eyes. “ _Anyways_ , how about that castle? Let’s look for some clay.”

“ _I wanna make it outta diamonds!_ ” the girl demands.

Ventus chuckles, low and affectionate. It takes an incredible amount of self control for Vanitas not to crawl over to him and place his hand on his chest, just to feel that sound reverberate underneath him.

“Let’s go with brick for now. We can decorate your room with diamonds, okay?”

He understands now, why Ventus spent that Christmas Day in Eraqus’s house with his hands on Vanitas’s legs like they’ve always belonged there. Vanitas finds himself wanting to do the same thing: touch him, just because they’re both here and he can.

He won’t drag Ventus down anywhere if he offers this small affection. It’ll be okay. The ball and chain has been washed away, leaving them free to move together.

Besides, Minnie’s been working with him on his relationship with Ventus. She’s dead-set on helping him establish a _secure attachment style_ , part of which includes working on _expressing affection for people who are special to you_ , as she likes to put it. He thinks this would fit in that category.

She probably tells him that it’s not bad to want Ventus at least three times a session. More, on the bad days.

It’s more complicated as they try to tread that line between friendship and something more that he still doesn’t feel ready to handle. Their reunion is still too tenuous, too newly-born to handle a jump that extreme. He can’t have Ventus be his everything, not when he was that for so long. He’s still trying to rearrange the pieces of his new life with the new friendships he’s slotted himself into, and shifting with the growing pains that come.

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Vanitas gathers his courage and places his hand a little higher on Ventus’s leg. He gives his shin a gentle squeeze, grateful that Ventus decided to wear shorts today.

(Basketball shorts, too, even though he doesn’t play basketball. Not cargo shorts. Thank god.)

Ventus shoots Vanitas another look, one loaded with equal parts confusion and amusement. Feeling his face grow hot, Vanitas looks away, but he awkwardly pats the leg closest to him.

Apparently that’s enough to get Ventus to catch onto what he was trying. “Just a sec, Chiara,” he says. The next thing Vanitas knows, Ventus is shifting on the couch, his torso occupying the space that his legs just did.

That leaves his head pillowed against Vanitas’s lap. “That’s better,” Ventus says with a contented sigh. “Hey, Chiara, wanna wave to _Zio Vanitas_?”

He tilts the screen up just enough to capture Vanitas on the video call, their cramped figures resting above the tiny scrap of sunlight that smiles and waves at him. “ _Hi Zio!_ ” she says, because she still hasn’t quite gotten the hang of saying his name yet.

Even in the video, Vanitas can see how red his face is. It’s embarrassing. That’s not to mention the way his heart hammers in his chest, pounding so hard that Ventus can probably feel his racing pulse in his stupid thigh.

It’s just on the right side of overwhelming to keep him from scrambling away. Still, focusing on the boy that settles against him (like he belongs there) is a bit too much for Vanitas’s frazzled nerves. He needs something else to focus on, so he snatches his phone off the armrest and pulls up the group text that he’s been steadily ignoring.

It seems that they wanted his attention, too.

The only thing Naminé wants for her birthday is to meet Ventus. She’s not good at receiving gifts (her words, not his) and the chance to get to meet the person Vanitas wants to show her painting to is more than enough of a gift in her eyes. It helps that she spreads her birthday celebration across her different friends. Roxas refuses to interact with one of Naminé’s old friends from their hometown, which gives her an easy out to prevent Kairi from planning a massive party for her.

She’s not good with crowds. Or surprises, for that matter. Neither is Vanitas.

But a small dinner where the details are all agreed upon is fine with him. Hell, he’s already volunteered to drive.

_Has Ven confirmed yet? I need to make the reservation!_ Xion writes.

_Jeez, really?_ Roxas writes back. It’s quickly followed by another text. _Is this place really that fancy…_

_Really Xion, it’s okay. We can just go to Tendergreens for dinner! I like Tendergreens._

_We’re NOT going to Tendergreens! We’ve been twice!_ Xion adds a number of angry emojis to the end of that text. Roxas follows it up with the third-stupidest emoji face, the one that’s laughing so hard it’s crying.

Vanitas finally types out a reply. _Working on Ventus now. Give me fifteen minutes._

Vanitas realizes after sending the message exactly how his idiot friends are going to interpret that. Embarrassment crawls over his skin as Roxas immediately starts to type. Vanitas turns off the screen before he can see the reply.

Another voice calls from Ventus’s laptop, the words fuzzy and indistinct. Ventus’s niece seems to hear it without a problem and she chirps out an eager, “ _Okay, Mamma!_ ”

“Time to go?” Ven asks.

“ _Yeah! Store time!_ ”

“Ooooh, have fun! We can play again next weekend, okay?”

“ _Okay! Bye-bye, Zio Ven!_ ” And immediately after, “ _Bye-bye, Zio!_ ” She blows a big kiss to Ventus (or possibly both of them?). Laughing, Ventus mimics the gesture before ending the call and closing his laptop.

Vanitas purses his lips, trying his hardest not to smile. That was adorable.

He can never let Ventus know. It’ll be the end of him.

Or maybe his end is the sunshine smiling up at him as he stretches, letting his arms fall across Vanitas’s lap and hang over the edge of the armrest. There’s so much fondness shining in his face as he reaches up to poke Vanitas’s cheek. “And what are you thinking about?” he asks, his voice light and teasing.

Yeah, this is definitely how Vanitas dies.

For a brief moment, panic wells up in his chest. Ventus is close, _too close_ , but before Vanitas can push him away and restore some semblance of distance he hears Minnie’s consoling words in his mind. His mental projection of her reminds him that it’s okay, healthy even, to express and receive affection.

It’s partnered with a few images that flash in his mind: Kairi looping herself around Naminé like an octopus, Roxas ruffling Xion’s hair after teasing her, Naminé shyly reaching out to hold Xion’s hand just because she’s close enough to touch and nothing else.

He takes a deep breath.

Lets Ventus poke his cheek again, pulling his mouth up until he can feel his lips split apart. Ventus chuckles to himself. “Weird raccoon,” he says.

Ventus is the worst. Scowling, Vanitas swats his hand down. “Shut up.”

“You know it’s true.”

“Shut up anyways.”

Ventus laughs. With his mood so high, Vanitas takes a chance and changes the topic. “What are you doing tomorrow night? Any club meetings? Dinner plans?”

“I’m getting brunch with Terra and Aqua, but I’m free for dinner. What’s up?” He looks up at Vanitas, his excitement so clear in his features. Vanitas wonders if Naminé could sketch this out, just so he could keep it forever. A simple picture can’t do it justice, but that girl is magic. Maybe she could.

That’s it.

“Wait. Before that, I want to show you something. Get up.” Vanitas pushes at Ventus’s shoulder until he sets his laptop aside and rolls to his feet with all the grace someone who spent his life winning judo tournaments should have.

Ventus follows Vanitas into his bedroom, breaking off just long enough to pet the two dogs napping in their respective beds. He doesn’t pet them long enough to wake either of them up, offering nothing more than a few quick pats on the head. Gear snuffles in her sleep as Ventus touches her. Vanitas stands by his closet and feels his heart skip at the sight.

When Ventus has had his fill, he approaches Vanitas with a raised eyebrow. Vanitas throws the closet door open and disappears within. A moment later, he comes back out with Naminé’s painting in hand.

“Oh wow,” Ventus breathes out, moving his head to catch the gold glittering in the sunlight that filters in from the bedroom window. His fingers come to rest against on the canvas, just underneath the painting’s eye. He smiles softly. “It looks just like you.”

“It does?” Vanitas asks, the hope in his own voice screaming in his ears.

Ventus nods. “Remember the first time you came over to my house back in high school? I think it was for some class project. We went up to my roof afterwards and stargazed.” Still smiling, he let his fingers trace down the painting. “Looking at this makes me feel like we’re there again.”

Vanitas knows, without a doubt, that his hopes ring true. This portrait, in all its beauty, is exactly what Ventus sees in him, stars in his eyes and the night sky in his hair.

“The girl who painted this - my friends and I are celebrating her birthday tomorrow. She wants you to come,” Vanitas says in a rush.

That soft look in Ventus’s eyes hardens. He doesn’t move, but Vanitas can feel him drifting to the horizons once again. “I don’t know, Vanitas. A _birthday_ , for someone I don’t know?”

“You met her once. Naminé. Terra’s friend.”

Ventus pulls his hand back to scratch at the back of his head. Vanitas recognizes it for what it is; a nervous gesture. “Still…”

Frustration races through Vanitas’s veins. He’s careful to set Naminé’s painting back down; the last thing he wants to do is some erratic gesture and accidentally damage it. “Cut the crap, Ventus. You keep doing this whenever I invite you to meet my friends. What’s your problem?”

“Nothing, jeez!”

“Bullshit. No more bottling things up, remember? You promised.”

That does him in. With a sigh, Ventus steps back and sinks onto Vanitas’s bed. He stares down at the carpet, his socked toes curling against the carpet. Vanitas won’t let him wear his shoes inside his apartment. He has enough dog hair to clean anyways; he doesn’t need additional dirt.

The amount of time it takes for Ventus to speak grates on his nerves. “Sorry,” is the first thing out of his mouth, making the conversation take a nosedive immediately into hell. “It’s just - it was really weird, that first time I was over here with those girls. It’s so different from how you are around Terra and Aqua.”

Vanitas snorts. “Yeah, because they’re _my_ friends.”

“It…” Ventus takes a deep breath, but he hear the shame in his voice when he speaks, “It felt like I had to fight for your attention when they were here. Like I didn’t matter. I hated it.”

“Wait just a minute,” Vanitas says, trying not to laugh. “Are you jealous?”

Ventus bites his lip as his face turns red, the shame slamming into him in full-force. “I sound like a brat when you put it that way.” He pauses, adding something so quietly that Vanitas can barely make it out. “And you sound like my mom.”

But Vanitas isn’t certain, so he doesn’t comment on it.

“That’s because you are being a brat. You spend too much time around preschoolers. Come on, they’re not bad for a bunch of freshman. Besides, you’re friendly. They’ll love you.”

_And you’ve always mattered to me._ He doesn’t say it, but he feels it, with every single beat of his heart.

Plus, Xion will finally get off his back about wanting to hang out with Ventus. It’s a win-win situation for everyone, especially if it means Ventus will get over himself to realize that Vanitas found some pretty great friends.

Ventus still doesn’t look convinced. Sighing, Vanitas sinks down next to him. “It’ll be two hours, Ventus. You spent more time in dorm government meetings back when you were dumb enough to think that was a good idea.”

Ventus snickers quietly. “Don’t complain. You got so much free food from all those events I snuck you into.”

Vanitas leans back, grateful for the lightened atmosphere. “I didn’t say the food was dumb. Just the event.”

Ventus doesn’t reply, choosing instead to stare at Vanitas’s painting like the watercolor version of himself will give him some other option. Despite that, the air between them is peaceful. If Vanitas didn’t know better, he’d try to hear the listen for the sound of the waves.

He listens to Ventus’s breathing instead. In, and out.

In, and out.

Finally, he speaks. “I’ll come.”

It’s weird, the feeling of joy that sparks through Vanitas. It sets off in staccato, a flurry of fireworks bursting in his chest. He’s not sure what to do with the feeling. Is he supposed to thank Ventus? Is this something worth a thanks?

He doesn’t scream into a pillow - he’s not fourteen anymore, for fucks’s sake - but this is that same feeling. Sharp and powerful.

Ventus grins at him, blinding like the sun. Vanitas thinks he sees spots as he looks away, blinking as multicolored stars dance in his bedroom. “If I had known a yes would make you this happy, I would have agreed earlier,” Ventus teases.

Vanitas can’t think of anything useful to say. The only possible replies his traitorous mind supplies him with are all too flirty to use and as much as he craves to see Ventus red-faced and laughing, that still feel like too much for him to handle.

Worse, Ventus could _flirt back_ , and then Vanitas really wouldn’t be able to handle that.

He stands up and returns to his living room, Ventus on his heels. He snatches his phone from where it lays abandoned on the table and types out a reply, ignoring whatever bullshit his friends threw out to tease him with.

_Ventus said yes. Make the reservation._

He checks the time, satisfaction blooming deep within him at how it didn’t even take fifteen minutes.

It only took ten.

 

* * *

 

i.

Ventus’s mom greets the pair with a grin. A digital camera hangs around her neck, the kind that Vanitas has only ever seen in movies. Ventus heaves out a sigh as she ushers them in front of the fireplace. “Your friends will be here any minute, so let’s get a few solo shots first, okay? And don’t you worry Vanitas, I’ll make sure Ven sends you these after I develop them.”

She snaps a few shots of them standing side-by-side, muttering under her breath about the lighting and composition of the shots. After a few of those, something seems to strike her and she slaps her forehead with a groan. “ _Mi amore_ , I just realized that you’re still not wearing your boutonnieres! Can you go grab them?”

“Oh, shoot! Yeah, lemme go find them,” Ventus says, rushing off to another room to find the flowers. Vanitas freezes when he sees the camera pointed at him again, feeling entirely like a deer caught in the headlights.

She brings the camera down and looks at the screen, clicking her tongue. “You’re so handsome, _cucciolo_. No wonder Ven can’t stop staring at you!”

Vanitas nearly chokes on his tongue, shaking his head so hard he thinks he might give himself whiplash. He doesn’t have anything to say to that. This is all so much, too fucking much, and the fragile hope that keeps trying to burrow into his chest feels like thorns brushing against his insides. The promise of pain is too close to relax.

He doesn’t want to hope, because hoping will only make rejection hurt that much more.

Ventus returns a moment later, carrying a small brown box. “Mom… why does Vanitas look like he’s about to die?” he asks suspiciously, sunlight shining over Vanitas yet again. It’s all so overwhelming that even his gentle light brings with it the threat of a burn.

“Because he does not believe me when I call him handsome! Ven, don’t you think your date is handsome?”

“M-mom!” he splutters.

She folds her arms over her chest and raises an eyebrow. “Well, don’t you?”

Defeated, Ventus turns to face Vanitas, though he keeps his gaze directed on the fireplace. His face is red again. “You look very handsome, Vanitas,” he says tersely.

“And Vanitas, don’t you think Ven looks handsome?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Good. So neither of you would mind if a handsome young man holds your hand, right?” Vanitas and Ventus share the same panicked look in that moment, but Ventus’s mom refuses to relent. “I swear, you both are a pair of tiny, terrified rabbits! You will thank me for these adorable pictures later. Now, go on. There’s a hand waiting for you to hold it, Ven.”

Slowly, Ventus reaches out and grabs Vanitas’s hand once more. This time, he shifts until their fingers are laced together. Vanitas’s hand may be bigger, but still, they fit so well together.

Ventus looks shy, something soft and unexplainable in his eyes, and for a wild moment Vanitas wants to surge forward and kiss him.

He sees Ventus’s mom raise the camera up for another picture, and he remembers where he is.

“Okay, now I want a few pictures of you pinning the boutonnieres on each other. Bring them out, Ven.” Vanitas lets go first so Ventus can open up the box, bringing out a matching set of what he guesses are the boutonnieres. Each one is made up of a light blue flower, the petals delicately sloping out in a clover pattern. The head of a gold pin sticks up beside a golden leaf, all of which is tied together by a gold bow at the bottom.

They take turns pinning the boutonnieres on each other’s suit jackets as Ventus’s mom hovers around them, snapping photos the entire time. “She really likes photography,” Ventus whispers, patting Vanitas’s boutonniere to make sure it’s secure. “And my brother didn’t go to prom, so she’s very excited.”

“You’ll thank me later!” his mom reminds him cheerfully. Before she can corral them off for more pictures, the doorbell rings. “Oh, your friends must be here! Perfect. We’ll take some group shots in the backyard. I had your father touch up the garden just for this!” she chatters as she goes to the door. Ventus sighs, but the smile on his face betrays his fondness.

The next few hours are lost in a swirl of chaos as the rest of their group arrives. Aqua, clad in a sleek silver suit with tailcoats that nearly brush the ground, eagerly introduces them all to her girlfriend. The girl is just as pretty as Aqua, every bit the princess to Aqua’s knight. Vanitas _still_ isn’t sure what her name is. They won’t stop making eyes at each other. Gross.

Rinoa and Yuffie arrive next, both wearing short white dresses and pretending to fire their matching corsages and anyone and everyone like they’re guns. Terra and Leon round out the group, the only thing matching about them being the equally unhappy expressions on their faces.

Vanitas thinks it’s funny; Ventus elbows him in the ribs and hisses at him to stop snickering like a big jerk. In those exact words.

True to her word, Ventus’s mom corrals them all into the backyard for more photos. The poses she goads them all into are much less soft than what she had Ventus and Vanitas do earlier, leaving him even more confused about what he and Ventus are supposed to be. Sure, they’re dates, but so are Rinoa and Yuffie, and he’s heard enough residual drama to know that no amount of clinging to Yuffie like a weird koala could stop that girl from liking Leon.

Sure, Ventus thought he looked nice, but if even Aqua can grit her teeth and begrudgingly admit that Vanitas looks nice, then how much more could his best friend?

Vanitas is so lost.

When they’re free from pictures, it’s time go to to dinner. They - in reality, Ventus’s mom - decided on some fancy sushi place not too far from the venue. Rinoa and Leon can’t be left in the same car with each other for too long, and since Terra will probably implode if he has to watch Aqua flirt with her girlfriend, Vanitas and Ventus end up crammed in the backseat of Leon’s car. The ride is exactly as awkward and silent as Vanitas expects it to be.

But he does catch Ventus glancing at him when he thinks Vanitas isn’t paying attention, leaving him pleasantly warm but also incredibly confused. Maybe he should make a mental tally list for whether or not he can believe Ventus might return his feelings.

_For_ : during dinner, he orders sushi for Vanitas after realizing that no, when would Vanitas ever have the chance to go out for sushi, and Ventus is determined to make sure his first experience is a good one.

_For_ : Ventus’s smile, bright like the sun, when Vanitas tries his first spicy tuna roll and immediately goes for a second.

_Against_ : the way Ventus spends most of dinner chatting with Yuffie and leaving Vanitas to her date’s annoyingly probing questions.

And so on.

The venue is a large, fancy hotel just outside of Victoria Gardens. Vanitas imagines that, on a normal day, it’s swarming with tourists eager to visit an outdoor mall that sounds more posh than it actually is. Tonight, it’s swarming with teenagers who may or may not be completely wasted.

They have the space to roam over half of the first floor. The actual dance is held inside of a large, ornate ballroom, with red carpet rolled out across the floor. A DJ is set up at one end of the room, playing every radio hit from the past two years at a volume that threatens to blow Vanitas’s ears out. Across from him are alternating black and white tables, each decorated with glittering stars. Balloons and streamers hang from the ceiling, but unlike the overwrought days of that middle school dance, these are approaching tasteful.

The theme is _A Night With the Stars_ , appropriately. It’s supposed to be some old glitzy Hollywood deal.

Vanitas makes a beeline for a table the moment they get past the security at the doors, claiming an empty one for himself. The others split as well; the girls all head for the dance floor, already packed with people, while Terra resigns himself to following Leon over to the food for comfort chicken wings. As if the sushi wasn’t enough for them.

Ventus slides into the seat next to him with an exasperated look. “Is that what you’re really gonna do? Sit here all night?”

“Yeah. Got a problem with it?”

“Yes! I didn’t spend that much money on your ticket just to sit here all night. I’m getting at least one dance out of you.” Ventus is all bright annoyance, daring him to challenge his stupid notion.

Arguing? That’s easy. Straightforward. Vanitas doesn’t have to think about that. “And who gave you that money? Your _mom_?”

“I got a job so I could pay for you, you ass!”

Vanitas freezes. He feels his jaw drop open. “...What.”

Ventus bites his lip. He doesn’t look so haughty anymore. “I work at the Papa John’s on Foothill now. I started a couple months ago.”

“Ventus? How long have you been planning this?”

“...A while,” Ventus answers.

_For_ : Ventus has apparently wanted to take Vanitas to a dance for _a while_. Long enough of _a while_ to save up enough money for a ticket that costed him well over a hundred dollars. Long enough to pay for his fucking dinner on top of that, too.

The song they have to shout over ends. The one that follows is slower, letting the people on the dance floor either filter off to the sides or pair up to sway together. They both glance to the other side of the room, silently watching it shift to something more welcoming.

Somewhere in the middle of the floor is Aqua and her girlfriend, holding each other close and refusing to let go.

_For_ : the silent question in Ventus’s eyes as they exchange glances once more, reaching his hand towards Vanitas in an offer just as quiet.

“I can’t believe you want me to slow dance to One Direction,” Vanitas takes, taking his hand. His heart races in his chest, pumping anxiety and fear and electricity through every part of him.

“I can’t believe you recognized this is a One Direction song,” Ventus says, gently tugging him towards the floor.

“And you didn’t?”

“No, because I don’t listen to One Direction. I’ll remember that you do, though. I’ll get you a poster or something.”

Vanitas gets ready to protest, to tell Ventus off that no, he doesn’t like One Direction and it isn’t his fault it plays on the radio sometimes in Xehanort’s old car when he goes grocery shopping and he doesn’t feel like changing the channel, but the words don’t come when he realizes that they’re surrounded by (other?) couples. And here they are, staring at each other like a couple of idiots.

Vanitas still has no clue where his hands are supposed to go. “I have no idea where my hands are supposed to go, Ventus.”

He isn’t sure if Ventus’s snicker is supposed to go in the _for_ or _against_ category. He supposes it doesn’t matter, because it makes him want to die of embarrassment regardless. Ventus hums like the bastard he is, but before Vanitas can tear himself away and go sulk in the bathroom Ventus grabs his other hand as well. Slowly, he brings both of Vanitas’s hands to rest on the small of his back, forcing them closer together than before. “I like them here,” he says.

Vanitas files that information away for later. For forever, maybe.

He’s almost certain that there isn’t a feeling in the world that could ever compare to Ventus’s hands settling on his shoulders like there’s nowhere else that they could ever belong. His heart feels ready to burst out of his chest, pounding hard enough that he wouldn’t be surprised if Ventus could feel it. And worse than that, his hands are getting clammy against Ventus’s back, which he’s certain Ventus must be able to feel even through three layers of shirts and-

“-You look scared,” Ventus says. “It’s okay. I’m nervous, too. Haven’t danced in a while.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, I’m serious! You can’t feel it, but my heart won’t stop racing.”

Oh.

“...Mine too.”

_For_ : Vanitas isn’t certain if he’s ever seen Ventus look this happy before.

Throughout most of the song, they’re quiet. There isn’t much else to say. Even if there was, Vanitas wouldn’t be able to find the strength to speak, not when Ventus keeps giving him that _look_.

Of course, when the quiet does break, Ventus is the one to do it. He’s moved his head to rest on Vanitas’s shoulder, and although the angle looks a little awkward for him given how they’re currently leveled out at the same height, he still looks so happy. “Hey, Vanitas?”

Vanitas hums in response, encouraging him to continue.

“Next Saturday… do you want to go see a movie with me? Maybe grab dinner before? There’s a burger place near where I work that I think you’d like. The food is great.”

Vanitas feels his heart sink somewhere deep into his gut, ready to be burned away by the acid that replaces it.

“There’s no way he’d let me, Ventus.”

“Are you sure?”

He’s pushed his luck enough for one month. “Yeah.”

Ventus tilts his head down, just enough to where Vanitas can’t judge his expression. What he can judge is the way his fingers curl into Vanitas’s suit jacket, though he’s not sure if that’s supposed to be a _for_ or an _against_. “Do you have a curfew tonight?”

“Nope.”

“Then let’s stay together for as long as possible. We don’t have to go to any official after-prom stuff, but we could go somewhere else. I don’t know, maybe Denny’s?”

The song ends, the beat picking back up into something frantic enough for teenagers to happily grind to. Still, they stay together, unwilling to break apart quite yet. Off in the distance Aqua and her girlfriend step in time to the beat in an actual dance, something classic and perfect for the iconic couple they are. They’re the living embodiments of a dream Vanitas won’t let himself indulge in, not entirely.

Eventually the pounding bass stands at too much of a contradiction to the gentle touch that still connects them and Vanitas breaks contact, turning away to try to hide the heat flaring over his face for the millionth time that day. This isn’t like the days of middle school, where he was naive enough to throw himself into the music and forget the world around him. He’s older now, too conscious of the eyes all around him to abandon his dignity that way. There are just too many fucking people.

Ventus seems to notice that. “Wanna walk around? We can go check out the rest of the hotel.”

Vanitas leans into the rush of excitement that tears through him at the suggestion. He has a feeling where this conversation is headed. “Aren’t we supposed to stick to the first floor?”

“Are we?” Ventus asks innocently.

Vanitas grins, feeling wild and reckless and blissfully _free_ as they leave the main venue and sneak into the rest of the hotel. The ornateness of the ballroom is echoed everywhere they see, rows of doors offset by beautiful lounges and fountains on every single floor. They steal complimentary mints that melt on their tongues from an unsupervised housekeeping cart and joke about what it would be like to be the kind of person who could stay in this hotel whenever they wanted.

The fountain by the second floor is close enough to hear the faint music playing below. When the next slow song comes on, Ventus take Vanitas by the hand once more, leading him into another dance. Vanitas’s heart doesn’t race the way it did the first time, but he shivers at the way Ventus’s hands slowly move to his waist this time around. Emboldened by the _fors_ that outnumber the _againsts_ , Vanitas slides his eyes shut and rests their foreheads together.

Together, they sway to words they can’t quite hear.

It’s strange, it’s a little awkward, and it’s utterly perfect.

Not even Ventus can change what Vanitas will have to face when the clock strikes midnight and his chariot turns into a rotten pumpkin once more, but Ventus is good at making him forget.

Eventually they have to go back downstairs to submit themselves to the professional photographer that Ventus’s mom made them promise to take pictures with and to find their dumb group again.

Their trip to Denny’s goes from a party of two to a party of eight once again. Even though Ventus won’t stop snatching pieces of bacon off Vanitas’s plate because he was a moron and ordered a sandwich instead of breakfast at two in the morning like everyone else, it’s more fun than he’s had in a long time.

 

* * *

 

iv.

When Xion speaks up again, they’ve fully crossed into the IE. They’re almost at Riverside now. The GPS says it’ll take another twenty minutes to get to their destination, but the idea of a detour is starting to form in the back of Vanitas’s mind. Not necessarily to put off what they came here to do - Vanitas isn’t afraid of a pile of ashes in a box - but to add a detail that he’s still debating the appropriateness of.

“Hey, Vanitas? Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“Those first few months after he died… what were they like for you?” she asks. He makes a mental note to ask her the same before the topic changes. He’s curious.  

Vanitas pauses, trying to summon those memories. Some of them are still painfully clear, hanging on the edges of his mind like they happened the day before. What’s strange is how some of them are covered in a haze not dissimilar to how he once felt.

Then there are others, things that he should remember, that are simply gone. A ghost of a headache works its way to the space just above his eyes as he tries to think of them.

“I’m not sure anymore. I remember bits and pieces, some more vividly than others, but most of it is a blur,” he explains. “What’s left is almost all bad.”

“Anything in particular?”

“Cleaning out the bastard’s house after he died. Fighting with financial aid to update my status as an independent student. The funeral. Ventus. Getting yelled at by Ventus’s friends _about_ Ventus.”

That quiet morning after New Years when he woke up with Ventus tangled around him. The ball and chain, now not much more than a distant memory whose imprint he rarely sees during particularly intimate moments. He knows better now, has had Minnie explain to him multiple times how grief and trauma twists someone’s responses into acts that easily defy explanation. There was simply too much of a void in his mind at the time to give the small sliver of land remaining what it deserved. Even that doesn’t always smother the residual guilt that still sears him like coals cooling down after a bonfire.

He and Ventus don’t talk about it much. Not anymore. There's no need to.

“Do you remember what classes you took during that quarter?”

“Not at all.” That’s a weird question. “Why?”

Xion nods, understanding. “When my mom died, my memories… changed. Even now, I still dream sometimes about the first few months after she died. I can tell you what I ate for breakfast the day of her funeral, but it takes so long for me to remember what grade I was in when it happened. I’m not even sure if I _do_ remember. I have to count down the years to figure it out. It’s strange.”

The scenery rushes by them, growing browner with every mile. Grass, even yellowed and barely clinging to life the way it so often is across Southern California, becomes a rarity. “It is.”

“Memories are strange,” Xion continues. “They’re kind of like a camera, but a broken one that rarely goes off when you want it to. Even when it does, the picture it gives you isn’t always true to life.”

“Pretty much. Not like we can do anything about it.”

Xion hums. “I think that’s partially why Naminé draws so many things around her. That way, even if she forgets what happened, her art can remind her how she felt. As long as the picture exists, so will the feeling she wanted to capture.”

“Until we die, and it’s all for nothing,” Vanitas points out.

“I don’t think that’s true. Even after we leave, we live on in the hearts of the people who cherished us. Even if our memories fade, or we forget what we once felt, that doesn’t make what happened any less real.”

Vanitas can’t counter that. He doesn’t really feel the need to. “I guess.”

Xion goes back to watching the dead grass fly by the window, settling back into a comfortable silence.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you follow me on twit all you've seen recently is me yelling about moving which is true! i am moving. but im gonna try to update again before i DO move, because i'm unsure of when i'll be able to update next post-move? dang. 
> 
> here's another single chapter, but it's one that i think is a lot of fun! i've never actually been to the restaurant they go to, but i DID write several thousand words about it so i am now contractually obligated to go.

iii.

Naminé lives in one of the nice complexes on Gayley. It must make grocery shopping without a car the easiest thing in the world, since she's a five minute, perfectly flat walk away from all the stores, but it makes finding parking outside her complex absolute hell. Vanitas settles for pulling into the entrance to her building’s parking garage and blocking out the asshole flashing his hazards at Vanitas like some blinking lights can scare him off.

She comes down a moment later. The place they’re going to isn’t absurdly fancy (most of this group are freshmen, after all, they barely know what fancy is), but the dress she’s in definitely is. The sleeves are short, lilac colored fabric resting just off her shoulders. An intricately embroidered rose, colored a deeper purple than the rest of the dress, traces its way along her side. It falls loosely around her knees.

The necklace Xion got Aqua to help her made (and hell if that wasn’t that a weird conversation to initiate, but worth it to see Xion glowing with delight) will go perfectly with her dress. She’ll probably put it on the moment Xion gives it to her. Still, something tells him that Xion will wait for them to be alone before that exchange actually happens.

Naturally, Naminé paired her fancy dress with a pair of sneakers she probably got from Target that are absolutely covered in paint stains. It’s like she’s wearing the murdered remains of a rainbow on her feet.

_Freshmen._

She sets her bag - a small thing shaped like a cat face - on her lap as she gets into the passenger seat. “Thank you for driving, Vanitas,” is the first thing out of her mouth.

“Thanks for being born, I guess,” Vanitas replies.

Naminé laughs. Once she’s buckled in, Vanitas backs out of the driveway and into the street, the frustrated guy behind him honking as he passes.

Vanitas slams his fist on his steering wheel and honks even louder, making Naminé jump from the sound. She blinks, startled, but Vanitas shrugs. “Drive here for five years and you’ll do the exact same thing.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

Vanitas gives her a once-over at the next red light. “...You’re more the type to ride a moped everywhere, anyways.”

“You know, I’ve always wanted one. Light blue.”

“So you’ve thought about it.”

“Class is really far away and parking on campus is free for motorcycles and bikes.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Nope.”

Vanitas snorts, but that’s all the response he needs to give. They’re both content to give way to silence for the rest of the short drive to the dorms. Vanitas turns onto the winding one-way road that curls through a litany of high-rise buildings. He drums his fingers against his steering wheel as he waits for the stream of pedestrians to slow down at the stop sign. Few people are stupid enough to jaywalk in LA proper, especially when speed limits aren’t limits so much as they are loose suggestions, but the dorms are a different story.

After a solid minute of watching exhausted students trek through the crosswalk, Vanitas finally drives the extra five feet needed to pull into the turnout closest to Roxas and Xion’s dorms. It’s fitting that these two twilight kids live in a group of buildings called Sunset Plaza. After spending five years fucking around this campus, he’s finally gotten a chance to see the dorms within. They don’t share a bathroom with the whole floor, which is nice. He’s sure that both Roxas and Xion appreciate that fact. Xion especially.

“Text them. They’re late,” Vanitas says, flipping his hazards on. Naminé nods and fishes her phone out of her bag, but she slips it back in with a small smile and points to the window.

Roxas and Xion walk towards the turnout together. Xion taps his shoulder and points at Vanitas’s car and the two exchange panicked glances before running over. They’re both dressed up more than usual too; Xion’s in a simple black dress and Roxas shrugged himself into a button-down, even if there’s still a flannel tied around his waist.

Vanitas glances down at his own clothes as the two climb into the backseat. He isn’t wearing a tank top. Sure, he put a t-shirt under a leather jacket, but if he’s not going on a date or meeting the school’s Chancellor, he’s not dressing up. This is as much of a success as they’ll get.

Three down, one to go.

Vanitas makes it to the top of the hill (not the Hill, god no, never, it’s a _stupid name)_ and pulls into the roundabout in front of Ventus’s massive dorm. The boy in question sits on a nearby planter. He’s in a thin green sweater and black slacks, something that’s just nice enough to look fancy by association. He perks up as Vanitas rolls to a stop in front of him.

Only for his shoulders to slump when he realizes there’s someone else sitting in the passenger seat. Defeated, he slinks to the backseat and slides in behind Vanitas. The others don’t know Ventus well enough to notice the change, but the sight sets alarms screeching in Vanitas’s mind.

They haven’t even left yet, and already it’s off to a bad start.

Like she always does, Xion proves yet again why she’s Vanitas’s best friend. “Hi Ven,” she says warmly. “Thanks for coming with us.”

“Uh, yeah… of course,” he says slowly. “Xion, right?”

Xion hums in affirmation. Vanitas doesn’t have to see her face to know that her eyes must be sparkling with joy at the fact that Ventus remembered her name. “Naminé’s in the front seat. And this,” she says, leaning back to give Roxas a chance to wave from her other side, “is Roxas!”

Vanitas pauses at the stop sign for much longer than necessary, his eyes glued to the rearview mirror as Roxas and Ventus stare at each other. Ventus looks ready to throw the door open and bolt back to his dorm.

“Do you think we look kinda…” Roxas begins, trailing off.

“Similar?” Ventus finishes for him. His voice is tinged with an emotion Vanitas can’t decipher. All he knows is that it isn’t good.

“Yeah.”

“Really?” Xion asks, tilting her head, “I don’t see it.”

This was a terrible idea. Vanitas is certain of it.

“Huh,” Roxas sayings, leaning back. “Vanitas, Naminé, what do you think?”

If Ventus is jealous just from Vanitas hanging around a couple of girls who are clearly head over heels for each other, admitting that there’s more than a passing resemblance between Ventus and Roxas might as well be a death sentence. Ventus would be an idiot to think that Vanitas would ever be interested in someone like _Roxas_ , but he’s kind of an idiot for being jealous in the first place.

“Don’t fucking look at me,” Vanitas says quickly. Nailed it.

Besides, Roxas is far from being the warm burst of sunshine that Ventus embodies, just as he’s even further from the rolling waves of the ocean. The twilight sun just doesn’t feel the same.

“I think so,” Naminé says. “I’d believe you if you told me they were brothers.” She twists around to face Ventus. “I’m sorry Ven. I don’t know you very well, but I think you feel different from Roxas. Does that make sense?”

“I guess so…” Ventus says, his tone betraying his confusion.

They fall into an awkward silence, the kind that transports Vanitas back to those early weeks of tenth grade when he first joined Ventus and his friends for lunch. He made a point to never speak to Terra and Aqua unless spoken to first, hovering on the edge of that planter with the intense awareness that he didn’t quite fit in there.

He wonders if Ventus feels that way now, intruding on something he feels he has no right to.

He hopes, desperately, that the feeling doesn’t stay.

For a moment, he wishes Kairi was here. She’s the loudest one of their ragtag group of idiots; she’s also the only extroverted one. Ventus can usually carry a conversation without a problem, but the rest of them are too quiet to bridge that gap easily. The place Xion picked is over on Sixth Street in Santa Monica; not a long drive going west at seven at night, but long enough to make Vanitas want to tear his hear out if no one talks for the entire drive.

Sighing, he takes it upon himself to spark a conversation. “Ventus.”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me about your day.”

“My day? Uh, sure. I got brunch with Terra and Aqua, which was good. I played a few games, went on Reddit for a while. Not much.”

“Games?” Roxas asks. “What kind of games?”

“I’m curious too,” Naminé says.

Vanitas couldn’t care less about video games. Ventus loves playing games online with other people, but he will never get Vanitas to play anything with him. He’s tried.

He can be bribed into playing a round of Bananagrams, but that’s only because Vanitas is pretty good at that weird version of speed Scrabble. Besides, it's a board game, not a video game.

They spend the rest of the drive talking about video games. Xion’s good enough at navigating the conversation that she can ask a question that’ll keep them all talking, but Vanitas is content to let them go off.

Ventus begins to warm up to them, if only a little.

The drive to Santa Monica is relatively free of traffic for a Sunday evening in LA. He still has to circle around through a few different blocks to find parking, letting the last rays of sunlight from the day help guide his way. The days of late spring are long, and while there’s still light, it isn’t enough to blind him as he drives. The streets aren’t wide, especially not when the meters lining the street are filled with parked cars the way they are, but the blue street signs that guide his way make him feel at ease. He knows these roads so well.

He finds street parking a few blocks away. The freshmen all get out and wait for further instructions, having no idea which way to walk next, but the meters around here go until eight and parking enforcement is basically made of a pack of time-sensitive demons in this city. Paying for parking comes first.

Ventus, however, knows better. “Oh no you don’t!” he says, bumping his hip against Vanitas and making him stumble away. His wallet is already in his hand and flipped open as he brings out his debit card.

“Ventus, it’s two dollars. I can pay it,” he grumbles, grabbing for Ventus’s card. Ventus throws his arm backwards and out of his reach, but Vanitas ducks around him and tries to grab at it from the opposite side. Ventus catches onto what he’s trying and spins around, firmly keeping his money out of reach.

“Nope! You drove. I’ll pay for parking.”

“Seriously, it doesn’t _matter_ , I’m used to paying-”

“-Which is exactly why I’m payi- _aagh_!” Ventus’s words are cut off as Vanitas presses his hand into his cheek hard enough to turn his face away. It’s a dirty move, but it works, and that’s what matters. He takes advantage of Ventus’s confusion long enough to push him out of the way, his arm serving as a gate barring Ventus’s ability to reach the meter as Vanitas digs his own wallet out of his pocket.

Vanitas shoves his own card into the meter. As the machine registers the payment, he turns his attention past the frustrated boy currently glaring daggers at him to see the peanut gallery staring at him. All three of them are at varying levels of confusion and curiosity.

“Is that… normal?” Roxas asks. “Should we step in?”

“This is very different from last time,” Naminé says. “I’m a little worried.”

But all Xion does is giggle. “I think they’ll be fine.”

“If the peanut gallery is finished, we have a reservation to make,” Vanitas barks out. They all have the sense to look sheepish, even if Roxas’s sheepishness is tinged with the edges of a frown.

They walk along the streets, passing under massive palm trees and tiny buildings with colorful awnings. The buildings of Santa Monica have never been good at sharing a cohesive aesthetic, but he appreciates the contradiction.

Vanitas leads the way, knowing the city’s geography better than the others. Somewhere behind him, Xion and Naminé talk to each other in voices so soft that they’re carried away by the breeze. Whatever it is they’re talking about is enough to drive Roxas over to Ventus.

“You’re a senior, right?” Roxas asks. “You must have everything after college figured out, don’t you?”

The remark is weird enough to startle a laugh out of Ventus. Vanitas doesn’t have to look behind himself to tell that. “No way! I have another year left. But… I do want to be a vet. I have to start applying to vet schools this summer.”

“Wow. It must be nice, having a plan. I don’t even know what I want to do yet,” Roxas admits, accompanied by the sound of his shoes scuffing against the concrete.

“You have plenty of time, don’t worry,” Ventus says. “Have you declared a major yet?”

Ah, the major conversation. Classic college kid small talk. Vanitas already knows the answer, having sat in his car and let Roxas wrestle the issue out for the forty-five minutes it took to get to the small concert at some seedy dive bar in downtown Roxas convinced him to pay ten bucks to go to a few weeks back.

(Vanitas also learned that not only does Roxas have a fake ID, he has a _good_ fake ID, and that he is very willing to use it. He finally understands what Xion meant when she described Roxas complaining while drunk as _bad_. At least the kid got home okay. He made sure of that.)

“Political science. My parents said I have to be either a lawyer or a doctor. I don’t like blood, so lawyer it is.”

“Do you like it?”

Roxas shrugs. “I’ve only taken two classes so far. It’s okay, I guess. My TA’s are nice.”

“That’s good. Though you don’t have to be a poli sci major to go to law school, you know? They care about your GPA and your test scores, not your major.”

“Yeah, but my parents would kill me if I did,” Roxas adds with a sigh. “I don’t know what else I’d even like. The only thing that’s ever mattered to me is music, but I don’t know if it’d be the same to major in it.” Something occurs to him, given the sudden exhale that bursts out of him. “Sorry for dumping all this on you. I just met you, too.”

He hears a light thud. It takes Vanitas a moment to realize that Ventus just clapped his hand on Roxas’s shoulder - a habit he picked up from Terra, no doubt. “Don’t worry about it! I’m happy to listen. You have time to figure out what you want.”

Vanitas doesn’t bother to fight the smile on his face. With his back to the others, none of them can see it, anyways. He’s just glad Ventus is getting along with his friends. He didn’t realize how much it mattered to him until now.

Is this how Ventus felt whenever Vanitas was around Aqua and Terra? This intense desire for some sort of peace between the people who mattered to him? Or did Ventus dupe himself into thinking that the bond between Vanitas and his friends was already genuine? The answer doesn’t matter anymore, not really.

But seeing Ventus like this, eager to cheer Roxas up and cheer him on, makes him want to try for real. Aqua didn’t glare at him when he brought Xion to meet her on campus, but he hasn’t spoken to Terra in months. At least Terra was always a little less cold to him, even if Vanitas was quick to rebuff any of his attempts at friendship.

Maybe things really can be different this time.

They reach the restaurant. The outside is fairly nondescript, just a squat white building with _Tar & Roses _ lighting up the side in neon letters. The inside of the restaurant is dim in the way that fancy places always seem to be. The only light comes from a string of fluorescent bulbs hanging overhead in a thin line.

Classic hipster decoration.

Xion edges her way to the front, pulling Naminé along by the hand as she checks in for their reservation. They’re immediately led back to a table off to the side of the restaurant, edging past packed tables full of other patrons.

Half of the seats are lined along a single cushion similar to a booth, while two chairs sit on the opposite side. The freshmen all slide into the booth, leaving Ventus and Vanitas to take the two chairs. Naminé is right in the middle. She doesn’t seem too pleased about that, but the twin grins Xion and Roxas wear is enough indication that she’s not getting out any time soon.

Moments after they’re seated, a different person bounces up to them. She’s dressed in all black, which only makes the orange braids that trail down each side of her head that much more striking. When she smiles, it’s with every single part of her face. “Hi, and welcome to Tar & Rose! My name is Anna, and I’ll be your server today! Can I start you out with any drinks?”

Roxas starts digging out his id so he can probably weasel his way into some booze, but one baleful look from Naminé stills his hand. Ventus, however, is perfectly legal, so no one stops him when he snatches up the menu and points to one of the rosés.

Naminé, at Xion’s urging, shyly asks for a rose lemonade, and the rest all take waters. Satisfied, Anna promises to come back in a couple minutes when they’ve decided what to eat and bounces off once more.

“Xion,” Naminé says softly, looking at the menu like it personally broke her art supplies in two and called her a hack, “These prices are, um, a lot.”

“It’s okay, don’t worry! Order whatever you want and we’ll cover the cost for you, okay?” Xion says, smiling at her. “Even Roxas has a job now, so I don’t think any of us are particularly worried about the money.”

“Hey, Xion! Way to make me sound lazy!” Roxas says, scowling. He reaches past Naminé to playfully shove Xion.

Everyone laughs, even Ventus. Vanitas feels an intense surge of relief, mixing with the gratitude of how fucking lucky he feels to be here. He didn’t think this could happen. He’s safe, and he has a goal to work towards, and a steady roof over his head, and he has friends, and he has the brightest burst of sunlight sitting a foot away from him, and _goddammit, he’s happy_.

( _What would the old man think? He’d be in disbelief. Shock, maybe. Mostly, he’d be fucking wrong._ )

Once more, he feels a slight pressure pushing at the back of his eyes, sharp and stinging. Not enough to actually cry, but enough to leave his throat tight as everyone debates about what to get. Ventus shares a soft joke with Xion as she passes her phone over the table to show him the whole fried fish she wants to order.

Riding the wave of the emotion threatening to overtake him, Vanitas snatches Ventus’s hand underneath the table in a loose grip. Ventus looks at him and blinks, shock written all over his face.

Vanitas doesn’t return his look, too occupied in trying to figure out what a lamb tartar is and whether or not he should try it, but he does squeeze Ventus’s hand. A silent promise that the move is entirely intentional.

Ventus squeezes back.

“Ven, will you try the snapper with me?” Xion asks.

“Hey, what if I want to try it too?” Roxas protests.

“The gnocchi looks good…” Naminé says softly, “But so does the lamb. I don’t think I can finish both.”

“You could take it home and eat it as leftovers,” Xion says.

“Or we could order for the table and split everything,” Vanitas suggests. “If we’re already splitting the bill, it doesn’t matter.” Plus, he kind of wants to try that snapper as well. No one could blame him for being curious about why it’s in every other picture online.

That launches them all into an even more complicated debate on what dishes they should order to split. For the most part, everyone defers to the birthday girl, which only makes the birthday girl a stuttering mess.

“We’re here to celebrate you,” Xion says softly, knocking their shoulders together. “So order whatever makes you happiest.”

God, they’re so adorable. Vanitas wants to barf.

Anna must have been hovering on the edges that entire time, because the moment they all settle down, she pops back over. She’s bubbly, if a little strange, and apologizes with a laugh when she has Xion repeat their order. “I’m not from the U.S.,” she admits, laughing. “But my parents are ambassadors here, and they think it’s good for me to have experience in the real world. So I’m still getting the hang of this whole server thing.”

“Oh, really?” Ventus asks. “Where are you from?”

She names a country that Vanitas is certain is not a real fucking place. Not even Europe is that weird.

After a couple tries, she finally gets their orders correct. Xion mentions something else about Naminé’s birthday as the server leaves, but there’s a sparkle in her eyes that tells Vanitas she heard Xion loud and clear.

He hopes for Naminé’s sake that Anna doesn’t try to get the entire restaurant to sing her happy birthday. He doesn’t think she’d survive it. At least she seems to really enjoy the lemonade she keeps sipping at.

Ventus only stops holding his hand when the food comes out and he has to use both hands to cut his food. But he scoots closer when he goes to grab a piece of snapper and when their knees brush together, he keeps his pressed against Vanitas’s.

He feels like he’s in middle school all over again, but it’s far from a bad thing.

They split that snapper, the skin crispy and the meat ridiculously tender. They eat lamb tartar that melts in Vanitas’s mouth, lemon ricotta gnocchi that explodes with flavor, and so many other fancy dishes that he forgets what they’re made of. Everything is delicious, though, and Naminé compliments every single bite she takes.

Anna brings out a giant pastry made of strawberries and packed with ice cream and sets it directly in front of Naminé. “On the house for the birthday girl,” she says happily. She takes Xion’s phone and snaps a photo of the five of them when Xion eagerly holds it out for a picture.

The bill is awful and while Naminé apologizes endlessly, the food was nearly worth the price tag. When they head back to Vanitas’s car, Ventus’s laughter is easy and genuine.

That night, right as he’s about to go to sleep, his phone buzzes with a single text notification. He only opens it because he sees Ventus’s contact on his lock screen.

_I think you were right… I was jealous. I’ll work on it, promise. But I had a lot of fun tonight. Your friends are cool._

Grinning, Vanitas sends him a text back.

_Cooler than you._

Of course Ventus’s reply comes quickly, tucked between rows of emojis. _Cooler than you, too!_

And one text from Naminé.

_Thank you so much for driving tonight. I think this has been one of my favorite birthdays. I had a wonderful time._

Vanitas doesn’t dream that night, but his sleep is peaceful.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> puts this up while i eat lunch. tomorrow i drive for 400+ miles because im taking the pretty route, wish me luck

iv.

Riverside is just as unremarkable as every other town in this part of California. It’s greener than the desert hell that pervades Vanitas’s earliest memories, but no greener than the town he grew up in. Not that it’s much of an accomplishment. As much as he wants to believe that the town actually lays alongside a river, he’s been burned by misfitting names before. He doesn’t trust it.

Nor does he particularly care.

He pulls into an unfamiliar parking lot that houses a very familiar grocery chain. The stores don’t go out as far west as LA, but it’s only fitting that he stops at a Stater Bros before visiting the bastard’s ashes.

Vanitas is well-acquainted with the aisles of this store, tagging along with the old man as a child only to go on every trip alone as a teenager. He knows the white lights, the scuffed tile, the mist sprayed over the vegetables that he used to stick his hands under on particularly hot days. As far as grocery stores go, it’s fine. Not bad, but he’s been spoiled by living walking distance from the largest Ralph’s in the country.

(Not that he walks there, god no. Why brave those hills when parking at the store is always validated and always available?)

Looking up at the familiar logo, the red text lining the top of the store and a blue ribbon marking the _O_ , feels a little nostalgic. At least, he thinks so. Is it still nostalgia if the glasses that he looks through are tinted black instead of rose?

Xion just looks lost. “Are you… hungry?” He’s certain that she’s never seen this store before, but the shopping carts littered across the desolate parking lot ( _l_ _ike crosses and flowers marking the sides of two-lane desert backroads_ ) must be what she’s drawing her guess from.

“No.”

She looks even more lost.

“We’re here to get flowers,” Vanitas explains.

Recognition sparks over her, though it’s quick to leave. “You didn’t want to go to a florist?”

Vanitas snorts. It’s a miracle he doesn’t laugh. “Are you kidding me? The bastard barely deserves shitty grocery store flowers. He’d never deserve a florist.” He thinks, with a tinge of bitterness staining his tongue, of the beautiful wreath at the funeral. He has no idea who brought it. Eraqus, probably.

Really, the bastard doesn’t deserve any flowers. Never did. Never will. But Vanitas figures that since he’s come this far out already, he might as well go for the full spectacle.

They go inside, welcomed in by the massive fans the buzz over the sliding doors. Vanitas looks around, searching for the glass display case that he’s certain he’ll find flowers in. It’s usually by the entrance, he remembers.

Sure enough, there’s a small display just past the front doors. They stop in front of it, Xion hanging back while Vanitas stops right in front of the glass and scans the blooms within. He knows next to nothing about flowers, though he can recognize a few different species. He pointedly ignores the roses, but a bouquet of lilies in every color of the rainbow catches his eye.

One of the lilies is slightly wilted.

Vanitas howls with laughter. It’s perfect. He opens the door and snatches up the bouquet, presenting it to Xion with a grin. “Look at this garbage. Isn’t it hideous?”

Xion glances at him like she’s looking for permission to agree. Whatever she finds in his grin is enough to make her nod. She reaches out for the tag, turning over the small piece of paper in her fingers and reading aloud the words written there. “Silly lilies. Eight ninety-nine.”

“That’s the worst name I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Xion delicately touches the sloping petal of a neon blue lily. She pulls away and examines her fingers before showing Vanitas. They’re covered in blue. “I think these are white lilies that someone spray painted. Are you sure you want to get them?”

“Oh, _definitely_.” It’s the floral equivalent of bowing to the old man only to spit on his foot. Everything he could ask for.

“Okay,” Xion says. “Do you want help paying for them?”

“What? No, it’s fine. I have money.”

They go to the checkout line. Vanitas snatches a chocolate bar off the stand by the cashier only because it’s there and he can afford to spend an extra dollar on chocolate. Once the purchase is made, he tucks the receipt into his pocket, hands the flowers off to Xion to carry, and keeps the chocolate for himself.

There’s still a part of him that balks at spending money on the bastard when he’s dead. That part of him screams to march back in and return the flowers so he doesn’t waste his hard-earned cash.

Honestly? He doesn’t even deserve spray-painted lilies. He doesn’t deserve anything. Not flowers, not this visit. Nothing.

“I’d probably like these if they weren’t so fake,” Xion says, poking at the wilted lily in the middle. It’s colored a vivid pink. Now that he looks at them, there’s no way something that close to neon could be natural. She tilts a petal up, revealing a small white patch underneath.

“You don’t seem like the flower type to me,” Vanitas says.

“I’m not, but my mom was. When I was young, she had a garden full of flowers. She liked white lilies the most. She kept a whole row of them, growing along the side of our backyard fence.”

Vanitas makes a grab for the flowers so she won’t have to hold them any longer, but she shakes her head. The single movement is enough to keep him from moving any closer. “I miss that garden,” she continues, peering down at the bouquet in her hands. “My dad and I didn’t keep it up after she passed.”

He’s not sure what to say to that.

Thankfully, she keeps talking. “It’s funny. I used to have dreams all the time about those lilies. I’d look out the kitchen window and see the garden full of flowers again. Even in my dreams, I couldn’t ignore how wrong it was.”

“...And then you’d see her, and know that your dream couldn’t be real,” Vanitas finishes for her.

She nods. “I’ve dreamt about her so many times that I’ve lost count. Sometimes I’m little in them. Mostly, I’m not. But I can never forget that she isn’t here anymore. It doesn’t happen as often as it used to, but I can’t say they’re fully gone.”

“I’ve been there, too. Wouldn’t call them dreams, though.” They never are. The bastard’s mere presence is enough to make it into a nightmare.

He doesn’t get them as often anymore, either. When he does, they don’t shake him as badly as they used to. The screaming matches he used to get into with that specter have turned to grousing, to leaving the bungalow without another word because at least in his sleep he’s afforded that choice. The bastard may berate him all he likes, but now Vanitas decides when the screen door slams shut.

It’s the same with the flowers. The old man is dead; he can’t demand this token of respect.

Vanitas thinks they’re funny, so they stay.

 

* * *

 

iii.

The last person Vanitas expects to see standing in line at Cafe 451 is _Terra_. Hardly anyone comes to a cafe tucked into the back of a library, least of all an _engineer_. They hardly see the light of day outside the bowels of the engineering building that they live in. Particularly daring engineers may brave the interconnected hallways and end up in the Math Sciences building, but even that is a stretch.

It’s weird enough for a Chemistry major like Vanitas to take over the pristine white tables of the cafe as often as he does. He wouldn’t bother if not for the mochas.

But an engineer, in a library on the opposite side of campus from where he belongs? Unthinkable.

Vanitas sets his headphones - silent, like always, but still excellent at blocking out unwanted noise - down and stands up. After a moment of deliberation, he snatches up the half-empty iced mocha he’s slowly working his way through and approaches this brick wall of a man that he hasn’t seen in months.

“...Terra,” he grits out. Terra starts, eyes going wide at the sight of Vanitas, and plucks his Airpods out of his ears.

“Vanitas?” he asks, utterly baffled. As if Vanitas had somehow died and came back to life, like he never expected to see him again. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“This is the only place on campus with half-decent mochas. Why are _you_ here?”

This is going great. Absolutely fantastic. Vanitas came into this with absolutely no plan, carried only on a vague notion that he should try to make peace with Terra. And what is he doing instead? Getting defensive, when he has absolutely nothing to defend.

Before Terra can respond, Vanitas grits his teeth and hisses out a sigh. He doesn’t apologize, but he tries again. That’s close enough. “I… it’s,” he falters, searching for something to say, “I’ve, been, uh, meaning. To talk to you,” he finishes lamely.

Terra barks out a startled laugh. “Me? Really?”

“Yeah.”

And now it's time to apologize.

One faltering word at a time, Vanitas gets it out. “I’m… sorry. For what happened last time we talked. You… didn’t do anything wrong. I did. I shouldn’t have hit you.”

Recognition sparks over Terra’s face. “Oh, that? Don’t worry about it. I was more shocked than I was hurt,” Terra says easily. The barista calls out an order for a tea latte and Terra immediately takes the drink. He winces at the heat.

Rolling his eyes, Vanitas snatches a cardboard sleeve from behind him and hands it to Terra. “They brew their tea stupidly hot here,” he explains. He’s never ordered the stuff himself, but since Naminé practically lives in the giant art building right behind this library, he’s heard her complain about it enough times to know. “Anyways, that… that doesn’t make what I did right. You don’t have to forgive me just because Ventus and I have made up.”

Terra slides the sleeve onto his cup with a grateful smile. Noticing the awkward pair of students waiting for their drink but clearly blocked off by Terra’s brick wall of a self, Vanitas leads him back to his tiny table and gestures at the empty seat across from his. “In that case, I’m forgiving you because it’s okay. I was never mad about it in the first place,” Terra says kindly. “You’re not as bad of a person as you think you are.” Terra’s hand tightens around his drink. “...I would know.”

“Would you now?” Vanitas asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I’ve learned a thing or two in the past decade, you know. I’m not who I used to be.”

“I guess,” Vanitas relents, pausing to take a sip of his mocha. He’s not here to pick a fight.

“Anyways, how have you been?” Terra asks, perking up the slightest bit. Vanitas can barely believe he’s genuinely interested, but there’s nothing in him that seems sarcastic or joking. Any animosity that Vanitas had expected to be present simply isn’t. Terra didn’t pay that day any mind, did he?

He really is an oaf, but maybe that’s not a bad thing to be.

“I’m… good,” he says, pausing as he realizes that it isn’t a lie at all. He isn’t stretching the truth. Not everything is perfect, but he’s really, genuinely good. There are still wounds within him, still remnants of that void in his mind, but even when he isn’t strong enough to keep moving, he has people to keep him on his feet. “Classes are fine. It’s… good, being around Ventus again.” He pauses. “I’ve been spending a lot of time with freshman. They’re not bad.”

At that, Terra laughs. “I’d say they’re pretty great. I do have a whole floor of them.”

“I have no idea how you put up with ninety of them knocking on your door for inane bullshit.”

“That happens less than you think,” Terra says. “I love interacting with my residents. Patrolling the building, though? Not my favorite way to spend a Friday night.”

He doesn’t really know what that means, so he’s grateful when Terra changes the subject. “You’re friends with Naminé, right? Are you going to her exhibit?”

“Yeah. She said I’m part of the exhibit. Do you know what the hell that means, or is she planning to shove me in a stupid costume and make me pose all night?”

That makes Terra laugh even harder. Vanitas groans, waiting for an answer. This is serious. He doesn’t know what that she-devil has up the tiny straps she usually calls sleeves. “I’m serious, Terra. She’s powerful.”

“No, no, don’t worry! She told me the same. I think she’s just using art she’s made of us for her exhibit.”

Vanitas feels his shoulders drop. He didn’t realize he had gotten so tense. “...Oh. That’s,” he clears his throat, “That’s… cool.”

Terra’s eyes practically sparkle with amusement. “You’ve really changed, Vanitas. Almost like you’re lighter somehow. It’s a good thing.”

Vanitas doesn’t have anything to say to that. He can’t protest it, not when he’s felt the change himself. It still feels a little weird to agree, but when he goes to take another sip of his mocha, he doesn’t try as hard to hide his smile.

 

* * *

 

i.

Terra and Aqua graduate high school. In every single photo Ventus uploads immediately after the ceremony ends, he’s crying. His arms wrap around their shoulders like they’re the only thing in the world that matters to him.

Vanitas watches the photos roll across Facebook from the solitude of his empty bedroom. Void chews on one of Vanitas’s old notebooks as she sprawls across his bed without a care in the world. He should really get her to stop, but he can’t bring himself to move.

Ventus had _begged_ him to come. He tried baiting him with dinner before. He tried getting Terra and Aqua in on the charade, with both of them prattling on about _how much it’d mean to us if you were there, Vanitas!_

He even cornered Vanitas in-between classes just as he was leaving the room tucked into the furthest corner of campus, lacing their hands together and giving Vanitas that _look_ again.

That one almost got him to say yes.

But with the nurse taking night classes at a local college, there’s no way in hell he can pull the kind of stunt that let him go to prom. Not yet, at least.

What Vanitas had done on that day, after drawing his hands out of Ventus’s grasp and staring down at the part of his shoe that was coming apart at the seams, was give Ventus a promise. “Look, the nurse still has to get his hours in over summer. I don’t have to take care of Xehanort during the day. You can drag me wherever you want then, okay?”

Ventus had been so happy that he punched the air and whooped.

But that Ventus is gone, replaced by the one on his computer screen who can’t stop crying. It’s especially stupid, because Aqua and Terra aren’t even _going_ anywhere. Terra’s taking a year to work and Aqua will be off sporadically traveling the country with her parents, but they’ll both be _around_.

Ventus is the one who won’t be around. The post that introduces his new album is proof enough.

_Hey guys! Congrats to all my Senior friends. I’m so proud of all of you! Wish we could spend the summer together, but my family just scheduled a last-minute reunion in Italy. My phone won’t work there, but my grandparents have wi-fi at their house so reach me here!_

He had told Vanitas right at the end of their last school day together (the last day they’d see each other for _three months_ ), promises to message Vanitas every day falling from his lips like an endless stream of ashes. Vanitas knows he shouldn’t blame Ventus, but it still feels like a betrayal.

Like a record on repeat, he won’t stop drifting away. No matter how far he walks, no matter how close that horizon may seem, it’s only ever a trick of the eye.

So while Ventus boards a plane to go spend his summer in paradise, Vanitas listens for the tell-tale way the nurse flings the screen door open whenever he enters the bungalow. Vanitas leaves the guy to distract Xehanort with his morning medication and coaxing him into eating an actual meal for the first time in two days and takes the opportunity to slip through the door with Void trotting at his heels.

It’s early enough in the morning that the heat of summer’s start doesn’t make Vanitas want to die. Still, he’s sweat through his shirt after twenty minutes of walking, so he takes a detour towards the local park so Void can drink from the fountain there. He glares at the families that look at him and his dog like they’re no better than shit they stepped in because they didn’t look where they were going.

Void’s tail wags softly when she sees the two kids, but Vanitas tugs at her harness and they keep walking. She’s a dog. She doesn’t realize the kids are looking on in fear, not admiration.

After another twenty minutes of sweating and walking (but mostly sweating), Vanitas reaches his destination. He hasn’t been to the library in years; he hasn’t needed to go since he got his computer. His days of tearing through novels out of boredom and typing up reports on their computers that are nearly as old as he is are gone.

But he has nowhere else to go, and he’s pretty sure this place is one of the three within walking distance that allows animals, so the library it is.

The library isn’t very big, all the books this town could ever need apparently few enough to be confined to a single floor. The circulation desk is located right by the entrance, meaning that Vanitas can’t ignore the nervous librarian watching him as he walks in.

Except the librarian isn’t nervous, not with the way he calls Vanitas’s name. “Vanitas? Is that you? Oh wow, get over here!”

Milo waves him over with a thin arm. Biting back a groan, Vanitas goes to the desk and rest an arm on the counter. He uses his other arm to motion to Void to sit down, and thanks the fucking stars that she actually obeys the command.

Milo is clearly older. His hair is still the same dirty blond as Vanitas remembers, still flopping over his gaunt face just like it used to, but wrinkles start to gather at the corner of his eyes and the edge of his smile. His glasses are still dinner plates that take up most of his face, but the rims are different, lined in a thin white trim.

“Jeez, I haven’t seen you in, what, three years? Four? You’re- you’re so big now, look at you!”

Vanitas levels him with a flat look. If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed, it’s how he _still_ has to look up to meet Milo’s dinner-plate eyes. “I’m seventeen and I topped out at five foot four. In what world is that _big_?”

“You still got a couple years to grow,” Milo says dismissively, waving his hand like it doesn’t matter that Vanitas will be short forever. “But wow, just look at you! I can’t believe you’re nearly grown up. How are you?”

Vanitas barks out a laugh, causing the dog at his feet to startle. He leans down just enough to scratch her head, hoping it’ll calm her down so she doesn’t get them both kicked out. Thankfully, it does.

When he goes to stand up, he nearly rams his forehead straight into Milo’s massive glasses. He ducks away at the last second, frowning.

“And you have a dog now!” Milo says with a laugh. “I would have never guessed!”

“Her name is Void,” Vanitas says.

“That’s an interesting name for a dog.”

“Shut up,” Vanitas says, turning away. He didn’t come here for small talk.

“Wait, Vanitas!” Milo calls out, stumbling out from behind the desk. A quick look around reveals that the library is practically empty, save for themselves, a few kids tucked off into the children’s section that Vanitas pointedly avoided at their age, and the other librarian who reads at a seat behind the circulation desk. “You didn’t answer my question. How are things with you?”

What could Vanitas possibly tell this guy that doesn’t even know him? That his asshole parent is dying and his crush who might possibly like him back is currently flying over the Atlantic Ocean? Not a chance. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“How’s school? You’re going to be a senior, right?”

“Yeah.”

Vanitas grabs a random book off the closest shelf - anything that’ll make him look busy - and drops into a seat at a nearby table. Milo drops into the seat across him, because of course he won’t let up. “Any idea what college you want to go to?”

Vanitas snorts. “As long as it gets me out of this dump, I don’t care.”

Milo laughs. “Suburbia can be suffocating, can’t it.”

Mostly his house is suffocating, but whatever. “I guess.”

“If you need help on your apps, you can ask me. Turns out, I can write a pretty mean personal statement,” Milo brags, puffing his chest out. He looks like an overgrown stick bug.

“Okay, sure, whatever. Can I read my book in peace now? I thought libraries were supposed to be quiet.”

That does him in. Milo’s shoulders slump as he draws in on himself. He lets his head hang, but he has to push his glasses up to keep them from slipping off his nose. “I understand. If you need anything, let me know. You’re always welcome here, Vanitas.”

He would hope so. It’s a public space, after all.

But even as Milo slinks away behind the counter and Vanitas lets his eyes glaze over as he realizes that he picked up a book about fucking _architecture_ , he lets his mind drift to college.

Ventus’s heart is set on one specific place. He’s working his ass off to get there. His GPA is fantastic, he’s taking the SAT for the second time in the fall just to see if he can’t improve his score, and he’s president of some dumb community service club whose meetings he drags Vanitas to every other week during lunch. That’s not even counting his shelf full of judo trophies.

He may not be Ivy League material, but there isn’t a public school in the nation that’ll stand a chance against Ventus. He’ll get there without a problem.

But Vanitas isn’t going anywhere good with a 2.5 GPA and nothing to show for his efforts besides a decent sob story. Maybe Ventus will let him steal his old SAT prep books to study so he can score in the top seventy-fifth percentile, but unless he can get a perfect score, even that won’t do him many favors.

Not to mention how he has absolutely no idea how he’ll pay for any of it. That’s too big of a request to even present to Xehanort. Something about saddling a teenager with debt until they’re forty leaves a bad taste in his mouth, but he’ll fucking take it if it means leaving this place for good.

He wants to allow himself to hope that when that day does come and he does finally leave, that Ventus will be waiting for him on the other side.

He really wants to.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i moved! there is currently a dog laying on my lap. i have to put my arm on her head just to type this. life is good, friends
> 
> this chapter is uh, really gay

iv.

Xion settles the flowers on her lap when they get back in the car, though she’s careful not to hold them too closely. Vanitas breaks his chocolate bar in two and offers her half. She takes it with a smile and nibbles on it as he throws his half into the center console. He can eat it while he drives. He’s gotten good at that.

Location set on his phone, he starts his car. Even as he pulls out of the lot, he’s especially careful with how he drives. The last thing he wants is to face Xion’s wrath for inadvertently staining her girlfriend’s cardigan.

“Hey, Vanitas? Can I ask you something else about your old man?”

“Go for it.”

“I know you said that you hadn’t spoken to him since you were eighteen. Why?”

“Didn’t I tell you I dropped out of high school?” Vanitas asks, glancing over to confirm her nod. “That was his fault. He kicked me out the day I was eighteen.”

“I’m sorry. That sounds horrible. I can’t… I can’t imagine how scary that must have been.”

Vanitas takes a deep breath. “Yeah. It was. Please tell me your dad never pulled any of that shit with you.”

She looks at him, shocked. “No, he would never do that! Sure, there was a little while after my mom’s funeral when he was distant. That really hurt. I spent a lot of evenings eating leftovers by myself because he’d spend all night researching at the university. Sometimes he’d come home, only to go back to work once he thought I was asleep. My mom was a researcher too, and I don’t think he could finish grieving her until the last project they worked on together was done. It took him a couple years to finish.” She takes a deep breath. “But I’ve never doubted how much he loves me. He isn’t perfect, but I never needed him to be. He was there when I needed him. That’s what mattered.”

“That’s great that you had that,” he says, the words coming out far more bitter than he intended them to be. He isn’t _bitter_. He isn’t mad at her for having a supportive parent. That’d be idiotic.

He’s just… yeah.

Xion’s shock gives way to something flatter. Something significantly less sympathetic. “Don’t be mean.”

And here comes the guilt, washing away his bitterness. That wasn’t fair to her. “Sorry. That was an asshole thing to say. I just,” he shrugs helplessly, “I don’t know. Wish I had that.”

“It’s okay. Please don’t do that again, though. That hurt,” she says. Oh, now he really wants to slam his head into a wall for making her feel bad.

He grabs his still untouched half of the bar and breaks it again. It doesn’t come out clean, leaving one half significantly smaller than the other. He hands her the bigger half as a second apology.

She shakes her head. “It’s okay. You already gave me half.” She takes a bite of the chocolate she still holds, seemingly contemplative. “Your old man… he hurt you a lot, didn’t he.”

It isn’t a question. She really doesn’t need to ask.

“He was an abusive asshole.” Vanitas feels another phrase form in his mouth. He rolls it around on his tongue, testing the truth of it. Xion’s perception of the bastard is shaped solely by him. No one else.

They pull onto the freeway, starting the last leg of this journey, and Vanitas tells her _his_ truth. The same words that were always reflected at him.

“He was a monster.”

( _Except there are still days, few as they may now be, when Vanitas thinks they’re one and the same, him and the old man._ )

 

* * *

  

iii.

During the day, Roxas likes to study in empty discussion rooms so he can connect his phone to the built-in sound system and play music as loudly as he wants. His current haunt of choice is the basement of the Humanities building, which according to Xion is pretty much the only building on campus that isn’t named after some rich donor.

“If you donate fifty million dollars, maybe they’ll name it the Vanitas building,” she says with a laugh, as if her joke wasn’t the dumbest thing Vanitas has ever heard.

Vanitas is quick to tell her that, but his retort is drowned out by Roxas’s wailing along to the low voice currently pumping out of the speakers. If anyone would donate that amount of money, it’d be Xion. She’s the one in love with the place, not the rest of them.

Ventus waits for an instrumental break before speaking. “Nobody would ever come here again if it was named after him,” he says, nudging Vanitas’s foot with his own. The tables in this room are all long enough to fit two people comfortably, and though this room is big enough that they could each get an entire leg of the square the tables all make to themselves, Ventus chose the seat right next to Vanitas.

He also agreed to come, even after knowing that Vanitas was already here with his friends. He doesn’t laugh as freely as he does around Terra or Aqua, but that’s to be expected. He grew up with those two; he’s only just met the two twilight kids that Vanitas picked.

“Having a building all to myself would be a godsend on this cramped campus,” Vanitas says. The song ends and Roxas finally calms down enough for the rest of them to have a normal conversation, even as he stays in his own world. Everyone’s content to let him be. He’s happy this way.

“Would we still get to come in?” Xion asks.

“If you pay the entry fee, sure. How else am I supposed to pay rent?”

“Jeez, I don’t know,” Ventus says, rolling his eyes, “Maybe with all the money you make from your dog training business? Seriously, it’s practically an empire at this point,” he says, pointing to the list of invoices currently occupying Vanitas’s screen. It’s the only reason why he agreed to let Roxas play his music out loud. He could probably train a dog to organize his invoices for him, it’s that easy.

“If you have a better way to pay my rent for the summer, then I’d _love_ to hear it. Until then, keep your dumb comments to yourself,” Vanitas says.

Before Ventus can launch them into a full argument, the door opens. Roxas freezes in place, mortified, but he relaxes when he sees a man with a head full of red spikes poking his head in. He must be in his mid-twenties, with a distinct sharpness to his features that reminds Vanitas all too much of a shark who’s gotten the scent of blood. “Axel!”

“Ya could’ve given me a room number to find you with! I interrupted two different discussions looking for this place,” he says to Roxas as he slides into the room. He’s tall, taller than even _Terra_. Like a weird red tree that someone made mobile.

Naminé’s drawing didn’t let Vanitas know Axel would be this tall. He comes to a stop by Roxas, though he nearly topples Roxas over from the sheer joyful force Xion uses to throw herself at him. “Axel!” she says. “You’re here!”

“Where else would I be?” Axel says, ruffling Roxas’s hair even as he gets shoved away from him. There’s no malice in the gesture, not with the way Roxas laughs so freely.

“TA’ing one of the classes that you _still_ won’t tell us about?” Roxas says.

“I already told you what I’m TA’ing this quarter - advanced puppetry.”

“So you _are_ a clown,” Vanitas says, attracting the attention of the three and blithely ignoring Ventus’s hissed reprimand. Axel looks at him as if this is the first time he’s noticed that there was someone else in the room with them.

Xion and Roxas both lose their minds at the comment, laughing like it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever heard. “Har har, very funny,” Axel says, his voice betraying his fondness. When the three of them stand together, Vanitas can see the traces of twilight in Axel as well. He’s the vivid fire that stands as the day’s last hurrah. “You’re Vanitas, aren’t you? The same guy who stole my best friends?”

Vanitas freezes, panic flooding his veins. Axel was there first, after all. How could Vanitas ever steal his friends, when he was the one without the right to their friendship in the first place-

-Xion’s voice brings him out of his thoughts. “Axel, don’t be jealous,” she says, patting his arm.

“Yeah,” Roxas adds, resting his hand on Axel’s other arm, “Not even Vanitas can be as much as a doofus as you.”

“Well, this _doofus_ is gonna be a doctor!” Axel says.

“Doctor doofus,” Xion says. “That’s a nice name.”

Axel groans, but he ruffles both of their hair even as they try to dart out of their grip. They’re all a bunch of overgrown toddlers, but somehow, the sight makes Vanitas relax a little. He wants to trust them. He really does.

After a few more rounds of pointless banter, Xion and Roxas start to gather their things. “Roxas and I are swiping Axel in for dinner, so we better get going,” Xion explains, stopping at the edge of Vanitas’s table. “But I’ll see you tomorrow, Vanitas?”

That’s right. They’re meeting tomorrow evening too, even if it’s just to endure some random campus event Kairi twisted their arms into going to.

“Yeah,” Vanitas says. “Later.”

The three leave in a swirl of laughter and sunsets, leaving Vanitas with his own burst of light to deal with. With the other pairs of eyes gone, Vanitas lets himself lean into Ventus just a little bit. His presence washes over Vanitas, condensed into pleasant shivers that run down his spine as Ventus’s hand finds his own and squeezes it.

He’s always craved Ventus’s touches, but there are times when it inspires more fear than warmth. Vanitas is intensely grateful that this is not one of those times. He wants to coast the waves of this feeling for as long as he can. A quick glance in Ventus’s direction convinces him that he’s not the only one thinking that.

“You’re upset,” Ventus says, running his thumb along Vanitas’s knuckles. It’s more comforting than Ventus could even know.

He really doesn’t want to talk about it, but the thought won’t leave him. “He said I stole his friends,” Vanitas says. Something about it still swirls negativity within him, but he doesn’t have the ability to tease out the specific emotions. He could probably find the root of the problem in a session with Minnie, but he won’t see her for another three days. Maybe he’ll just have to stew in whatever this is until he sees her.

Ventus squeezes his hand again. “Vanitas… you know friendship isn’t a contest, right? You can’t win friends, just like you can’t steal them. I’ve spent enough time around Xion and Roxas to know they wouldn’t let anyone make them choose between you or anyone else, anyways. That’s not what friendship is.”

Vanitas snorts. “You sound like Aqua.”

“I do? Aqua’s smart about this kind of stuff, so I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Yeah,” Vanitas says. The storm within him settles a little. He doesn’t understand how Ventus did it, but Vanitas feels less uneasy than he did before. It’s easier to think that he doesn’t have to worry about them picking him. This isn’t elementary school. He doesn’t have to wait in line anymore and hope that someone will be desperate enough to pick him for their kickball team.

They don’t need to choose him over someone else. They choose to hang out with him, and that’s enough.

Ventus smiles at him. Powered by a sudden surge of affection, Vanitas laces their fingers together. Ventus’s smile shifts to something smaller, sweeter, the tiniest bit shyer.

Vanitas is completely, ridiculously, utterly _in love_.

“That’s better. Your smile is cute,” Ventus says fondly, making Vanitas’s heart leap into his throat and stay there. “How about you finish organizing your dog stuff and then we go get dinner, okay? I’ll swipe you in. Anywhere you want.”

Swallowing, Vanitas nods. His face burns, but it’s a sunburn that doesn’t hurt. Not at all. He glances at the textbook that lays abandoned in front of Ventus. “...Finish reading your chapter,” he says lamely, using his other hand to reach over like an idiot and tap the page. “Before we go.”

Ventus swings their joined hands together during the walk back to the dorms like he’s six again and doesn’t know what it feels like to be embarrassed. Not that Vanitas is embarrassed about anything other than his clammy hand, but Ventus looks too happy for him to let go.

He doesn’t have to wonder if Ventus loves him back. No, he knows that with certainty now. He hasn’t doubted that in a long time, but it settles within him in a way that it hasn’t before. Like another piece out of alignment that finally slotted back into place.

Vanitas is getting better at this whole _relationship_ thing, both with Ventus and with the other people who have settled their own spaces in Vanitas’s life. The shores of his mind are wider again, maybe wider than they’ve ever been. Wide enough to have and hold all the people who he lets himself hold dear.

They care about him. Slowly, he’s learning how to let them care.

The ball and chain has remained at the bottom of the ocean.

Right where it belongs.

His and Ventus’s steps together are still unsteady, but they continue to move forward, walking ever closer to the goal they both want. Vanitas bumps their shoulders together. Ventus laughs, even as he stumbles off balance.

Not yet, but soon.

They get dorm pizza for dinner from the fancy, pseudo-Italian take-out place they both love. Vanitas steals pieces of chicken off Vanitas’s food and Vanitas retaliates by stealing an entire half of Ventus’s pizza. Playing fair is for losers.

“Hey! You’re gonna have to make it up to me somehow!” Ventus says, jabbing Vanitas’s arm with his finger.

“Oh really?” Vanitas says around a mouthful of stolen pizza. Ventus grimaces whenever Vanitas talks with his mouth full of food, which only makes him want to do it more. “Am I now?”

“Stop that! I can’t even look at you, you’re so gross. Now you definitely have to make it up to me.” Ventus steals another piece of chicken and pops it into his mouth. He swallows and licks his lips. Vanitas finds himself watching. “...Make me a Tequila Sunrise.”

“What? _Now_?”

“After we’re done eating, duh! We can go back to your place.”

“I don’t have any juice,” Vanitas says, frowning. He doesn’t drink the stuff. He hasn’t touched that bottle of tequila in months or the grenadine syrup that takes up fridge space next to it, but he had to throw out the accompanying juice months ago.

“Then we’ll go get some after we’re done.”

“Fine, but I’m not letting you drink alone,” Vanitas says.

Ventus grins. “Good, because I wasn’t planning on drinking alone.”

An hour and a half later, after a grocery run for orange juice and Coke that Ventus primarily spent riding on the back of a shopping cart as Vanitas actually got the shit they came for, they sit on Vanitas’s couch. Vanitas is pleasantly buzzed - not quite far enough gone to be fully drunk, but enough to know from experience that his face is tinged red from the alcohol. Ventus, being the lightweight he is, is definitely much drunker. By how much exactly, Vanitas isn’t certain.

Drunk Ventus and sober Ventus aren’t all that different. Drunk Ventus snorts when he laughs and has absolutely no filter, but drunk Vanitas loses most of his filter whenever he can get his shit together enough to speak. Neither of them are particularly more emotional than normal, save for how funny Ventus’s ugly laugh becomes.

Ventus laughs a little too hard at the force with which Void uses to flop herself onto the carpet to sleep, accidentally making the half-empty Tequila Sunrise in his hand slosh over the rim and onto his shirt. So _that’s_ how drunk Ventus is at this point. He’s at the point where he’s lost most of his fine motor control.

Well, time to catch up, Vanitas supposes. He downs the rest of his vodka Coke in one gulp. Even when masked by the sugar, the alcohol still burns at the back of his throat as it goes down.

Next to him, Ventus groans. “It’s all over my shirt.” He leans over and weakly pushes at Vanitas’s arm with the back of his hand. “Lemme borrow one of yours.”

“Don’t order me around,” Vanitas says, pushing his hand away. They ricochet between tender and vitriolic so easily, even if the balance has been tipped towards tender since their reunion. It’s only a matter of time before the scales shift once more.

That doesn’t stop Vanitas from getting up, digging a t-shirt out of the dresser in his bedroom, and throwing it at Ventus’s face with a hilarious _thwack_. Ventus sets his drink down on the coffee table as he pulls it off his face and stumbles to his feet. Vanitas slips back onto the couch and watches as Ventus struggles to pull his own shirt off.

Vanitas _could_ help, but he notices something covering Ventus’s shoulder that makes him freeze in place. “Ventus,” he says, gaining the other boy’s attention when he finally pulls the shirt off and lets it crumple to the floor in a messy pile. “Is that a tattoo?”

“What?” Ventus asks back.

“On your shoulder.”

Ventus tilts his head back and pulls his shoulder forward, trying to look for the offending thing. His fingers brush along the top of the ink and something in his eyes sharpens, even as a confused tilt to his mouth appears. “Oh yeah. That. I forget it’s there sometimes.”

What it is? Is gorgeous. A yellow sun takes up the majority of Ventus’s left shoulder blade, tendrils of light both dancing around and dancing away from the glowing orb in the middle. The longest beam ends just before the top of his shoulder, easily hidden underneath a tank top or t-shirt. No wonder Vanitas hasn’t seen it before now.

Mouth dry, Vanitas slowly gets to his feet and runs his fingers along the design. It doesn’t feel any different from the parts of his shoulder that aren’t tattooed; it’s enough to tell Vanitas that this wasn’t a recent decision. He doesn’t comment on Ventus’s shiver at his touch, unable to find the words to respond with. What he says is simpler to handle. “How long ago did you get this?”

Ventus turns to face him. “February, I think? It’s been a few months.” He pulls Vanitas’s shirt over his head, an old black thing that Vanitas bought for ten bucks at a beachside shop in Venice. The white silhouettes of palm trees stand against a vivid sunset, with _Venice Beach_ written beneath the image in looping cursive. It’s a size too large for Ventus, the sleeves an inch too long and the waist too wide.

“When we weren’t talking.”

“Yeah.” Ventus sits back on the couch. He’s too drunk to be upset by the change in topic. He still doesn’t like talking about the four months that burn like the hot coals of a fire in their recent history. At least he doesn’t look upset now, just contemplative. Vanitas sits next to him, taking it as a good sign. “I wasn’t talking to Aqua or Terra much, either. Weird, since Aqua was the one who helped me with the design.”

“Why’d you get it?”

Ventus gives half of a shrug and he looks off into the distance. “I was inspired by you. You know one of the tattoo artists at Gullwings, Yuna? I talked to her after we went there. I started to think about getting a tattoo, so Aqua helped me design one. She was gonna come with me, but then I, uh… I got mad at her. So I went alone.”

“What? Why would you do that? You’ve been inseparable since…” Vanitas trails off, trying to count the numbers of years that Ventus has been friends with her. Downing the rest of his drink worked. He’s officially too drunk for simple arithmetic. “...Since forever.”

“I, uh, kind of blamed her for what happened with me and you,” Ventus admits, taking another sip of his drink. “Terra and Kairi too, but Terra’s always liked you more than Aqua did, and I know how scary she can get when she’s angry. When Kairi found out, she offered to make it up to me. That’s why the whole…” he trails off, waving his hand in the air. Vanitas gets what he means; that’s why she slotted herself between them. A favor and an apology, wrapped into one.

And now, a friend, one that’s probably blowing up his phone with Snapchats from her shaved ice date in K-Town with one of the girls on the volleyball team from their rival school. He’ll reply to whatever it is in the morning. Trying to text correctly is too much of a chore right now.

A thought strikes Vanitas, one that feels more important than whatever bear shaped out of black sesame flavored shaved ice Kairi must be stabbing to death with a spoon right now. His filter is lowered enough that he doesn’t stop to think about whether or not he should bring it up. “What were those four months like for you? Actually like. Not just the shit you told Kairi so she’d think everything was okay.”

Ventus finds Vanitas’s hand and holds it in a loose grip. Probably a reminder to himself that Vanitas is real, and that he’s here. Vanitas lets it happen.

“It was hard. Really hard,” Ventus says. “I was really mad. I avoided Aqua for a while. Terra and Kairi too, I guess, though for not as long. I blamed myself. Because now you were alone, and struggling even when you pretended not to be, and I couldn’t be there for you!” Ventus lets his head thump against the back of the couch as he stares up at the ceiling. “Then my _parents_ found out I was failing my classes, and that was the worst. My mom dragged me home during a three-day weekend and had this whole intervention where she made me tell her everything. She helped me figure out a lot of stuff. Made me realize I wasn’t helping you as much as I thought I was, even. After that, mostly I just missed you. I was happy that you were making friends according to Kairi, but also a little guilty and angry. You were making friends, and getting better, and I… I wasn’t. I stayed the same.” Quieter than before, he adds one final thought. “Sometimes I still wonder if I hurt you more than I helped you back then.”

Vanitas is too bogged down by the pleasant haze in his mind to deal with the end of Ventus’s monologue. He focuses on what he can. “Did you… finally tell your mom? About the old man?”

Ventus nods. “Sorry. I know you wanted me to keep it a secret, but the story wouldn’t make sense without it.”

“It’s fine. Nearly everyone else knows.” At least, the people who knew him when it happened. “I don’t really care anymore.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Fine. Don’t believe me.” Strangely enough, the way his thoughts slowly shift to ones of the old man doesn’t affect him the way he used to. Alcohol makes it easy to exacerbate his bad moods, but he doesn’t feel ready to disappear into the sky. He’s still here, still grounded.

Still drunk enough that words come easily. A story bubbles within him. Not quite eager to get out, but necessary. Before it can, there’s something else that strikes him. It’s a louder echo of what he felt earlier that day, when their hands were intertwined and Ventus held onto him without a care in the world.

It isn’t that he’s trying to get Ventus to heal the patchwork damage of his heart. There are still holes there, but there’s a team of doctors performing this surgery now. No, what he wants is much simpler than that.

He wants Ventus close. That’s all.

Not so Ventus can shove together jagged pieces that never fit right in the first place or slice himself open trying to smooth Vanitas out.

No.

Just because he can.

“Come here,” Vanitas says roughly, scooting back until he’s perched against the armrest, trying in vain to tug Ventus forward without putting any real force in the gesture.

Ventus gives him an odd look. “What?”

The words come, even if it’s with no small amount of hesitation. “...I want to hold you.” Slowly, he opens his arms, waiting for Ventus to come closer and fully trusting that he will.

He does, once the rusty cogs in his mind finally turn. He all but collapses on Vanitas, making him wheeze as Ventus tries to settle himself on Vanitas’s chest, letting their legs intertwine with ease. Ventus smiles up at him, fully the rays of Santa Monica sunshine that make him feel alive unlike anything else in the world.

Vanitas’s hand shakes as he runs his fingers through Ventus’s hair, watching the spikes bounce back into place even after pushing them in the wrong direction. Ventus settles his ear right over Vanitas’s racing heartbeat and lets his eyes flutter shut.

But Vanitas still has a story to tell him. “You’re not going to fall asleep on me, are you? There’s something I want to tell you.”

“Nah, not yet. This is better than dreaming,” Ventus says easily, effortlessly. If Vanitas wasn’t already red, he would have turned scarlet by now. Ventus’s smile grows just a little bit wider as he must feel Vanitas’s breath hitch.

“Stop- stop that. Stop flirting,” Vanitas says, about ready to die when Ventus starts to laugh. “And stop laughing! I want to talk about something serious.”

That gets him to calm down somewhat, even if it takes a solid minute. “Okay. What is it?”

“...How much have I ever told you about what it was like growing up? What it was like to live with the bastard.”

Ventus sobers, just the slightest bit. “Enough to know it was bad,” he says, and then, “Enough to hate Xehanort.”

That gives Vanitas the courage to speak. He tells scattered stories from across his life, picking and dragging them like fruit out of thorn covered bushes that rot in his hands. They’re unconnected, coming in sporadic bursts of memory, but Ventus listens all the same.

Vanitas talks about the endless judo drills against invisible opponents, the tea that scalded his skin when he made it wrong, the fights, the way the old man’s creaking voice would echo off the walls, the way that Vanitas carefully moderated any and all requests - anything and everything that comes to mind, he shares.

He’s shared it before, in sloppy pieces, but the way he shares has changed. He isn’t eighteen and constantly teetering on the edge of panic, trying his hardest to downplay years of abuse as nothing more than an ugly inconvenience. He has the words now.

He has a sense of horror, mingled with rage. He has not just the knowledge of what he suffered through (because what was that experience, if not suffering?), but the ability to accept it at face value.

Or at least, something closer to face value.

And when he’s talked himself hoarse and nearly sober, Ventus lifts his head off Vanitas’s chest just enough to look him in the eyes.

“Vanitas- what, no, don’t look away! Look at me.” He places a hand against Vanitas’s burning cheek. Ocean eyes bore into him. “Nothing like that will ever happen to you again. What you lived through - that wasn’t love. Parents who love their kids, who _truly_ love their kids, don’t do that to them. You didn’t deserve that.”

“Now you sound like my therapist.”

“Good! That means what I’m saying is right.”

“Guess so,” Vanitas says, holding him a little tighter.

“People love you, Vanitas. Real love. I’ve seen it.”

Ventus pauses, something heavy in his gaze.

“Don’t say it, Ventus,” Vanitas says quickly, right as Ventus opens his mouth. He doesn’t want to hear Ventus say it when they could still blame these words on the haze in their minds. “Not like this.”

“...Fine.” Ventus wraps his arm around Vanitas’s waist and holds him tight. His _then I’ll show you_ goes unsaid, but Vanitas allows it.

( _The moment will be gone before the sun even rises when Vanitas jerks in his sleep and sends Ventus falling off the couch and to the floor in a jumble of flailing limbs. They won’t talk about it, not really, but one look at Ventus confirms what he suspects._

_They crawl to separate places to properly sleep - Vanitas back to his bed, Ventus curled on the couch- but he knows they both feel it._

_Some kind of shift, just a shade short of imperceptible.)_

 

* * *

  

I.

Senior year isn’t that bad, all things considered. Having Ventus back as more than just a series of words on a screen is a welcome relief. He worked up a nice tan from his summer spent in the European sun, lounging by the waves and eating olives off the stem or whatever it is that Ventus does when he goes to Italy.

It doesn’t matter. At least, Vanitas tries not to let it matter. What matters is that he’s back.

With Terra and Aqua off taking their first shaky steps into true adulthood, Ventus dedicates his lunches at school solely to Vanitas. He plucks grapes off the stem and still presses them into Vanitas’s hand whenever he thinks Vanitas wants one, but there was one terrifyingly exhilarating moment a few weeks back where Ventus took one of those grapes and pressed it directly against Vanitas’s lips.

Vanitas panicked and bit Ventus’s finger instead of enacting whatever cheesy scenario Ventus had built up in his head. Not hard enough to leave a mark, but hard enough for both of them to scoot away from each other and spend the rest of lunch mumbling apologies.

They don’t share any classes this year, which is the worst part about school. Vanitas never lets himself miss a single day, regardless of how sick he may be. It’s the only break he gets from Xehanort. Of course he’s not going to waste a single opportunity.

His classes that aren’t boring suck. People don’t avoid him the same way they used to, too tired to remember their grudges from elementary school, but that’s a far cry from having other friends. He’s able to ignore it, for the most part. The exception is in woodshop, where Terra’s old workstation always seems a little empty regardless of who tries to fill it.

It’s weird. He doesn’t like Terra. He never has. But not having his stupid jokes fill the air in-between sanding down wood for jewelry boxes and birdhouses is even weirder.

At least he has Ventus. They spend enough time together that Ventus’s other friends see them as a unit. A pair kept in perfect lockstep.

They still sit together at lunch, on a planter far too big for two. It isn’t that cold out today, which is surprising for how late in November it is, but that does nothing to stop the boy huddled against his side for warmth. He has his hoodie zipped up to his chin, but the way he curls around the thermos of pumpkin soup in his hands and the tension pulling his body taut is more than enough to show how he feels about the weather.

Vanitas only ever wears the shirt he has on now if he’s certain he won’t have to take off whatever jacket he’s thrown over it. There’s a hole along one of the arms that refuses to be sewn up regardless of how many times he tried to fix it. The shirt is so threadbare, the black fabric stretched so thin after years of wearing it again and again, that whenever he does sew something up, another tear opens.

Normally taking off his jacket wouldn’t even be allowed to cross his mind, but Ventus is on the edge of shivering. With a sigh, Vanitas shucks off his jacket and holds it out. “Take it.”

Ventus eyes it carefully. “But then you’ll be cold.”

“I’m not the one shivering, am I? Go on. Take it. Just give it back to me when lunch ends.”

“Fine,” Ventus says, slipping it on. It’s a little big on him. Not enough to leave him drowning in extra fabric, but enough to make it easy to pull on over his own hoodie. He zips it to his chin as well, though this time, he tucks it up over his nose. Vanitas can’t see his smile, but he recognizes the glimmer in his eyes. He’s happy.

Vanitas has had enough time to think that Ventus probably does return his feelings. His eyes don’t linger on other people anymore, just Vanitas on the days when its warm enough to justify wearing tank tops. He doesn’t talk about dating other people.

He doesn’t talk about dating Vanitas, either.

“Thanks,” Ventus says, his voice slightly muffled by the fabric. He leans down to get something out of the brown lunch bag at his feet. What he pulls out is a plain chocolate bar. “I got you this last night on my way home from work. It’s not fancy, I know, but hey. It’s still chocolate, right?”

Vanitas takes it from him. “You say that like it could be something other than chocolate.”

“Jeez, I sure hope it’s chocolate.”

Vanitas checks over the wrapper, but all of it is intact. He wouldn’t put it past Ventus to give him something weird wrapped up in a chocolate bar as some dumb prank. When he rips it open, all he’s hit with is the sweet smell of mass-produced sugar and cocoa. He breaks off a piece and pops it into his mouth. “Seems normal to me.”

He breaks off another piece as the first melts away to nothing. He thinks about mimicking the motions that Ventus had gone through before and pressing the chocolate to his lips, but he decides against it. It would be stupid and embarrassing.

He does hold it out for Ventus to take, which he does with a grin and a cheerful, “Thanks.” He leans a little more into Vanitas after that.

They remain in lockstep just as they remain in gridlock, moving together but never forward. Things like the pressure of Ventus’s shoulder against his own and the blush that hangs high on his cheekbones as he tucks his face back into Vanitas’s jacket after eating push hope into him like a gift.

Plus, Ventus has been using more hearts in his texts recently.

He hopes that the balance will tip soon, but he doesn’t know how to tip it himself.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The School of Arts and Architecture Presents: Connections._

iii.

“There you are!” Ventus says, his voice full of midday summer warmth as Vanitas approaches him. He sits on a brick planter, feet kicking against the portion where alternating red and white stripes turns to just white concrete, but he gets to his feet when Vanitas crosses the small gap between them. They agreed to meet at what three-fourths of the school collectively calls _the crosswalk,_ where the bottom of the dorms and the proper start of campus stay separated by fifteen feet of... crosswalk.

Particularly desperate students will jaywalk it on occasion, but most people believe the rumors of traffic cops who will rise from the shadows and give you a two hundred dollar ticket too much to try. Ventus is one of those saps.

Not that Vanitas particularly minds. Naminé’s exhibit isn’t going anywhere, after all. They can stand to kill a couple extra minutes by just standing around.

“You said meet at the crosswalk at six forty-five. It’s,” Vanitas pauses just long enough to check the time on his phone, “six forty-four.”

“I didn’t say you were late,” Ventus says. “I’m happy to see you. That’s all.”

There it is, that shift from before shining so clearly that Vanitas can’t deny it. No, he leans into it, letting this terrifyingly exhilarating feeling take root within him and stay there. He’s warm all over, something separate from the heat of the air all around them. “I’m. Happy. To see you, too,” he says haltingly. Even something as innocuous as that still fills him with fear. This feeling is so powerful.

Like the ocean when he goes in waist-deep, far enough to feel the promise of power that would only drag him below the depths. Yet, for all the times he’s waded into the water, he’s never once fallen in. Impossibly powerful, and yet surprisingly gentle.

Ventus’s smile is beautiful.

They don’t hold hands, but every time Ventus’s shoulder brushes against Vanitas’s own leaves him with electricity coursing through his body. The walk down (and then up several flights’ worth of stairs) is filled with easy talk and easy laughter. Ventus moves with abandon, hopping onto the smooth brick slopes of Janss Steps and walking up it like he’s on a tightrope as Vanitas ascends the proper steps. For all their years of judo lessons and other forms of exercise, they still reach the top slightly winded. Everyone does. The proud towers of Royce Hall stand over their heads, making Vanitas feel small in a way that even the skyscrapers of downtown, as large as they are, never do.

It’s too late in the day for the tour guides in their blue polos and athletic shorts to lead groups of tourists and wannabe students around, but looking at the grand arches of Royce and the red bricks of Powell Library summon their voices anyways: _Did you know that UCLA has been filmed as Harvard more times than Harvard?_

He didn’t, but they never shut up about it, so he does now.

Instead of tour guides, they pass through groups of seniors posing for their graduation photos. Girls in white dresses with blue and gold sashes draped over their shoulders time their splashes in a small fountain a a photographer in sweats snaps away on a fancy camera. Other people pose at the top of the steps, or in front of Royce Hall, or climb onto the ledges and peek out from behind the ornate spires around them.

That’ll be himself and Ventus next year, with any luck - paying some kid with a good camera two-hundred bucks to follow them around for an hour and snap pictures so Ventus’s mom can cry and frame every last one of them. Ventus’s mom would do it for free, but he doesn’t trust her not to make them go through a series of increasingly embarrassing poses.

He lets his mind drift for the last portion of the walk as Ventus entertains himself by drifting along the brick pathways and hopping up the final steps two at a time. His therapy sessions with Minnie have started to shift recently, focusing more on topics like his _self-worth_ and _processing the connection between his current actions and his past trauma_. It still isn’t easy to talk about his past, and any session where he does leaves him ragged and hollow in a way he doesn’t fully understand, but they’re approaching it cautiously.

He thinks of something she told him just a few days ago. He can picture her in his mind’s eye clearly as she carefully fixes the little red cap resting on her head. _I know you want to make sure that you have a solid foundation in your friendship with Ventus before you try a relationship, dearie. What worries me is that you’re waiting for the perfect moment to start that shift. We’re only human, Vanitas. We all carry hurts with us, however big or small they may be. That hurt doesn’t make you incapable of loving someone._

He’s starting to understand what she was getting at. Just a little.

The art building finally comes into view. It’s a far cry from the Ivy League architecture they just passed through. The building is massive, split into an uneven L shape. Behind the squat side that most students know about solely because of the massive lecture hall within is a tall building that looks more like an office building than it does an art center. In front of the building is a funnel-shaped structure, something that serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever.

The path leading to the building looks strangely like a bridge, skirting the edge of the Sculpture Garden full of strange bronze statues. The purple jacaranda trees have finally lost the last of their blooms, having fled alongside the cool temperatures of early spring.

Still, the sculptures that stand in every shape and size, scattered about tiny rolling green hills, are somehow beautiful.

“It took me two years to realize it wasn’t pronounced broad,” Ventus says, steps tracing the small ledge of the not-bridge.

“It took Xion scolding me to realize it was pronounced _brode_ ,” Vanitas says. “Like the museum.” According to Xion, who guzzles down school trivia like she’s dying of thirst in a desert, the two are named after the same wealthy couple. It makes sense.

“Oh yeah, that place! The one in downtown by the Grand Central Market and the karaoke bar from _500 Days of Summer_. I’ve always wanted to go.”

Vanitas snorts. God, he hates that movie. It’s not worth getting into an argument over, though. Not when they’re so close to Naminé’s exhibit. He focuses instead on the part of Ventus’s statement that won’t start a fight. “I’ll look into getting us tickets. For the museum, not the bar.”

“Can we go to Eggslut for lunch?”

“Ventus, who do you think I _am_?” The name is terrible, but the burgers? Amazing. For as large as Grand Central Market is, that giant warehouse stuffed to the brim with pop-up stands with every kind of food imaginable, Vanitas has tried maybe three places in total. He’s a loyal customer.

(He went there with Xion once, a few weeks back. Mostly, he was grateful that it’s always so large and chaotic that not even their dumb asses can get kicked out easily.)

“Do you think Naminé has been yet? I bet she’d love it,” Ventus says, dropping his words with such casual ease. Vanitas lets a fierce joy sing through him. Ventus isn’t nearly as close to Vanitas’s friends as he is, but he never expected Ventus to be. The fact that he’s making an effort - from all the meetings he’s had with Naminé so she could paint him, to the tentative pieces of advice he offers Roxas, to the laughter he’s shared with Xion, and of course his own previous friendship with Kairi - means way more to Vanitas than Ventus could ever know.

“We’ll see if she and Xion want to tag along,” Vanitas says as they finally reach a small room at the very bottom of the art building. The doors are closed, but there’s a small A-frame next to the door advertising the event within. _The School of Arts & Architecture Presents: Connections_, it reads.

They go inside. The exhibit space within is tiny, nothing more than a square room with blank white walls and a small entryway. An attendant greets them as they enter, handing each of them a small booklet with information about the exhibit within. Ventus thanks the man as Vanitas lingers at his side, already flipping the booklet open and reading the introductory page within.

_Connection: a relationship in which a person, thing, or idea is linked or associated with something else. This quarter, we asked the first-year students in our Art department to consider the connections present in their own lives. While their studies focus on the introductory elements to mediums of art they may be unfamiliar using, their day-to-day lives are radically transformed as they connect to the pulse of this campus. Using a variety of mediums, techniques, and art forms, our students have put together an answer to the question we posed to them at the beginning of the year: what connections matter in your life?_

_We hope you enjoy the following exhibit, and pose that question in your own life._

_-Dr. Facilier & Dr. Phillips, co-chairs of the Art Department. _

What pretentious bullshit.

The exhibit space is filled to the brim with people. Art of every kind adorns every corner of every wall, but all Vanitas cares about is Naminé’s portion. Ventus trails after him as Vanitas pushes past stuffy faculty, terrified freshman, and other art students in their ridiculous outfits. He spots Kairi’s familiar head of red hair on the other side of the room and pushes his way towards her. Wherever Kairi is, Naminé and her work won’t be far behind.

Kairi catches his eye and grins. She tries to wave, but she only can after two hands, one in each of hers, lift up and gesture at him. She’s attached herself to two boys, each standing on either side of her: one with silver hair who towers over her even with the impressive slouch he leans into, and another with a head of brown spikes and an aura of sunlight that could almost rival Ventus.

Vanitas lifts a hand in acknowledgement and staunchly turns to face the art on the wall. He’s here to see what Naminé’s poured every spare hour of her quarter into, not to make nice with Kairi’s weird friends. She’ll hound him into introducing himself eventually, but even she knows better than to make a scene here. She doesn’t even know what the word tact means, but she loves Naminé too much to fuck up right now.

Vanitas doesn’t need to read the small glass plate at the corner of the exhibit to know that he’s found Naminé’s portion. The first thing that catches his eye is a familiar sketch of the boy with the brown spikes. It isn’t hard to figure out that the boy in the drawing and the boy currently filling the gaps between Kairi’s giggles with his own are one and the same. Strings of red yarn connect that sketch to two other pieces: a small volleyball charm nestled within a bed of dried flowers, their pink petals turned rose gold in the bright light, and a pair of bat wings made of construction paper.

They sit together in a triangle in perfect alignment, the same on every side.

The sketch of Roxas, Xion, and Axel hangs in a higher corner, though the paper has been burnt at every corner. Music notes, carefully tied together out of guitar strings (and how Naminé managed that, Vanitas blames on Terra) and skateboard stickers keep the art in place. A trail of popsicle sticks connects that to the exhibit’s central piece.

A large painting - larger than even the one Naminé made of Vanitas - sits at the center. Xion, rendered in soft watercolors, is caught mid-laugh, less of a portrait and more of a snapshot. The twilight sun streams in from the window of what Vanitas guesses must be a coffee shop, given the americano resting on the table in front of her. Most of her face is bathed in soft reds and golds, leaving only part of it rendered in dark shadows.

It looks exactly like her. It _feels_ the same way being around Xion does.

Naminé really is talented.

Off to the side is a photograph of a small wooden row boat floating on a river. Small wooden oars make up the frame surrounding it. Below that is something he recognizes immediately.

Two canvases are captured in two different photographs, though held in the same frame. The frame itself is a stark metal, made of alternating paw prints and stars. One photograph is a blurred version of the painting she made of Vanitas. He’s studied the original long enough to recognize the gold flecks of the stars and the matching gold of his irises; the gentle rubies that bleed into soft blacks. It’s so blurred that most of the colors blend together in a layered streak of pigment. Only the gold remains sharp and poignant, still shining on the glossy paper.

Next to it is a photograph of the exact reason Ventus has spent so much time at Naminé’s these past few weeks. The picture is horribly overexposed, most of the detail lost in a white haze. The only thing the remains sharp and clear is the sun in the middle; the same tattoo on Ventus’s shoulder. It doesn’t glitter the way the gold does, but it emits a soft glow, like the sun itself was captured on his back.

Between the two photos is a red string, carefully tucked underneath the edges of each photo. The same kind he saw in the triangle earlier. Delicate, easy enough to cut, but nearly impossible to pull apart with bare hands.

“Wow,” Ventus breathes next to him. “Isn’t this amazing? I could have never come up with something like this.”

“Yeah,” Vanitas says, something rough in his voice, “She’s pretty fantastic.” He looks around, taking note of all the strangers and faculty who stop to admire her exhibit as well. Amidst the din he can see Roxas and Axel, lightly shoving each other around and commenting on the part clearly meant for them. Roxas shoots the occasional dirty look in the direction of Kairi and her boys, but all it takes to distract him is another dumb comment from Axel.

But they’re not who he’s looking for. He raises up on his tiptoes (which doesn’t fucking help much) and scans the room, looking for the shadow of a girl. She’s tucked herself away at the corner of her own exhibit; Vanitas pushes his way through the crowd to her.

She perks up when she sees him. “Hello, Vanitas,” she says kindly, her eyes glittering. She’s dressed up for the occasion, clad in a light blue dress, a yellow cardigan, and a black beret resting on her head. “I’m happy you could make it.”

“Are you kidding me? I’m in your exhibit. Of course I was going to be here.”

Her smile is sweet. “Do you like it?”

“It’s leagues better than every other pile of garbage here.”

Naminé laughs softly. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Just don’t let my classmates hear you say that.”

Vanitas huffs out something that, in the right circumstances, could be misconstrued as a laugh. “Hey, Naminé.”

“Yes?”

The word that spills out of his lips contains none of the grit it usually does. It’s a strange sensation, but not a bad one. “Thanks. For blurring the piece you did of me.” It wouldn’t feel right for just anyone to see on its own, but the way she presents it is fine. The details were only ever meant for one other person.

“Of course. That person you wanted to show it to… did they like it?”

Vanitas spares a glance back to Ventus. He’s relocated to Kairi and her boys, the four of them exchanging pleasantries like they all know each other. Knowing Kairi, she’s probably introduced them before. Ventus catches him watching and offers a bright smile, causing Vanitas’s heart to stutter in his chest.

“Yeah,” Vanitas says, turning back to Naminé. “Yeah. He loved it.”

This shadow of a girl could never burn brightly enough to blind him, but the glow of her smile is soft and comforting. After a few moments, it falters, and she scans the area just like he did. “Did Xion come with you, by the way? I haven’t seen her yet.”

That’s weird. He expected Xion to be the first person here. “Nope. She didn’t come with us.”

Naminé deflates, the shadow turning to cling to the walls once more. “Oh… okay.” Vanitas knows he has nothing to do with it, and that her disappointment isn’t his fault at all, but it still feels like a knife to the chest.

“If you worried about her coming, then why don’t you text her already?”

“I did. Twice. She never responded.”

Panic flares in Vanitas’s blood. He’s out of the exhibit with his phone to his ear in moments, the dial tone ringing like the bells of a death sentence. He listens to it once, twice, three times, before the call goes to voicemail.

She _always_ answers his calls. He doesn’t know who else to check in with, since Roxas and Axel are currently being idiots inside. Where could she be? Is she okay?

Dammit, will Vanitas have to look for her? He wouldn’t know where to start. Maybe her dorm? He could badger someone into letting him in without too much hassle. Resolve set, he goes outside and sets back off towards the dorms-

-And sees a twilight girl sprinting like hell towards him. “Xion!” he shouts, startling her so badly she trips over her own feet and nearly falls on her own face. He’s at her side before she’s even recovered.

He didn’t know he could run that fast.

“Where were you? What’s going on? Are you hurt?” Vanitas demands, giving her a quick once-over. She pants from exertion, but seems fine otherwise.

“No, no, I- _haa_ \- had training,” she pants out, struggling to regain her breath. “And it went late. Really late. I ran here as fast as I could.”

He forces her to slow down to a more normal pace as they head back to the exhibit. “Calm down. It isn’t going anywhere,” he says, falling into step at her side. “I just tried to call you, by the way.”

“You did? Sorry. I have to keep my phone on silent during training, and I so worried about getting here that I didn’t think to check it…” she explains.

Vanitas feels the last of his tension drain out his body. “Well, you scared your girlfriend. She thinks you’re going to skip out. Go talk to her.”

He can practically see Xion’s blood turning to ice in the way she freezes. She casts him a single, utterly _terrified_ look before dashing past him and running inside. He follows after her at a much more normal pace, though he does keep an eye on her as she fights through the crowd and tackles Naminé in a tight hug. He doesn’t have to hear her to know the litany of apologies spilling out of her.

All Naminé does is hold her tight in return, take her by the hand, and carefully explain each portion of her work to her. Curious, Vanitas drifts to the side and watches, the realization settling over him that Xion must not have seen the main piece of Naminé’s work before now. He wouldn’t have heard the end of it if she had.

Xion’s jaw drops open when her eyes do settle on her own portrait, standing beautiful and solemn in the very center. She turns to Naminé, still gripping her hand like a lifeline, and kisses her fiercely. He can hear Naminé’s squeak in the sudden stillness, but she soon brings her hand to Xion’s cheek and eagerly returns the kiss.

The brown-haired boy and Kairi start to whoop and cheer. Within seconds, the taller silver-haired boy joins in. That’s followed by who Vanitas assumes to be her classmates, and his own ragtag group of idiots quickly follow.

Even Vanitas lets out a whistle, just to join in on the fun.

Her classmates must think that she just got the girl. The jokes on them. She’s had the girl for a long, long time.

Naminé spends the rest of the exhibit swamped by congratulations, on both her art and on the girlfriend she’s had for the past four months. Vanitas spares the other students’ work a few passing glances, but really, none of then can compare to Naminé’s work. Once the crowd starts to thin, he figures he’s spent a socially acceptable amount of time being a good friend. He goes to Naminé and taps her shoulder, interrupting her conversation with some blonde girl with ridiculously long hair.

“I’m leaving. Figured I should let you know,” he says.

Naminé’s too much of an introvert to withstand this much social interaction. “Okay,” she says, her smile strained. She’d be begging him to take her with him if she could escape as easily. What she says next shocks him. “I found out about this exhibit’s theme at the very beginning of the year. It scared me, because the only friend I ever had was Kairi. Sora and Riku too, of course, but I could never have the bond that they have with each other. It still amazes me that I have so many people I cherish now. I never thought it’d be possible for me to feel this happy.” Her smile shifts to something a little easier and a lot more genuine. “Thank you, for being part of my life.”

She’s so genuine, and there is no way in _any circle of hell_ that he’s going to let himself cry here. He quickly turns around. “Yeah, whatever.”

Her giggle is a cheese grater against his ears. “Thank Ven for me too, please.” Of course she just assumes that Vanitas was going to drag Ventus out with him. He was, but still.

She-devil.

( _He loves her._ )

“Yeah, yeah.”

He finds Ventus exactly where he figures Ventus would be - with Terra and Aqua. They both greet him warmly as he approaches their trio.

He doesn’t greet them verbally, but he does nod. Their grins - Terra’s broad across his face and Aqua’s settling small on hers - tell him that it’s enough to suffice. He stops at Ventus’s side, fully cognizant of the smile that he’s starting to suspect Ventus aims at him and him alone. He forces the accompanying shiver down.

“Hey guys, I think we’re gonna head out,” Ventus says, his grin turning apologetic as he faces them. “We’re still on for dinner tomorrow, right?”

“Of course,” Aqua says. “Vanitas, do you want to come?”

Vanitas freezes. He balls his hands into fists just to feel the scrape of his nails against his palms, the sensation as sharp as ever. That at least confirms that he isn’t dreaming. Still, there’s no way in reality that _Aqua_ would be the one inviting him to crash their little dinner party.

“I still have a lot of swipes to get rid of,” Terra adds. “You’d be helping me out.”

“...Fine.”

“Great,” Aqua says, clapping her hands together. “One of us will text you the details tomorrow.”

“Awesome! Bye, Terra! Bye, Aqua!” Ventus says, waving to them as they finally head out. The sky is dark, but the lights from the building illuminate Ventus’s grin with ease. He stretches with a pleasant groan, humming softly under his breath as his arms fall to his sides. “Do you have to go back to your apartment right away?”

“No.” He fed Void and Gear before he left. Normally, Vanitas would have taken them on their nightly walk half an hour ago, but he convinced Nani and her boyfriend to do it for him. He didn’t know how long the exhibit would take, after all, and he’d rather be safe than come home to an accident all over his living room floor.

Besides, he’s accepting it as payment for having to watch Lilo and her hellhound during their date night later this week.

“Me neither,” Ventus says. “I got kinda stiff standing there for so long, and it’s nice out tonight. Do you want to walk around campus with me?”

“Sure.”

Rather than taking the not-bridge, Ventus starts in the direction of the sculpture garden proper. The lighting here isn’t as intense as the outside of Broad, but white lights wrap around the trees scattered across the small hills to illuminate the various sculptures. There’s more than enough light to see Ventus smiling once more, walking with his head high and with ease in his movements.

He catches Vanitas’s eyes. Smile turning a little coy, Ventus takes Vanitas’s hand in his own. Lacing their fingers together feels instinctual at this point; Vanitas does so with ease. His heart stutters pathetically at the way Ventus shines.

They pass by a small, strange fountain. Water pours out of three cubes stacked atop one another, the sound gentle in the quiet night. The white light from above makes parts of the water glow. Pretty, but nothing compared to the sunlight coloring the crest of the ocean waves.

Nothing compared to the sunlight and the ocean eyes at his side.

Vanitas stops.

He can’t deny that he’s still scared, still nervous about taking too far of a step that could hurt Ventus. He can’t deny that he has no idea what the other side of the chasm he’s thinking of crossing will look like.

But Ventus’s heart calls to his own, just like the sea always has.

“Vanitas?” Ventus asks, stopping beside him. “Something wrong?”

Vanitas shakes his head. He takes a deep, steadying breath, trying (and failing) to calm the sudden frantic race of his pulse. He steps closer, close enough that he can feel the faintest puff of Ventus’s breath on his face.

Ventus is so sweetly confused.

Vanitas takes a page out of his book and rests his hand on Ventus’s cheek. Still confused, Ventus leans slightly into the touch.

Vanitas drags his thumb across Ventus’s lips. A silent request for permission.

Ocean eyes flutter shut as his lips part just the slightest bit.

And Vanitas kisses him.

Vanitas quickly realizes that for all the times he’s read about kisses in books and seen it in movies, he has absolutely no idea how to kiss someone. Ventus moves his lips almost automatically and Vanitas tries his hardest to mimic what he does, but it only lasts a few short seconds before Ventus pulls away.

“You’re really bad at this,” Ventus says, chuckling as he rests their foreheads together. Vanitas scowls and tries to pull away, but Ventus wraps his arms around his neck and keeps him in place. “Wait, no! Don’t go!”

“What do you expect me to do after making fun of me?” Vanitas snaps, looking away. His face burns.

“If you let me _finish_ , I’d tell you.”

“Fine. Finish.”

“It’s okay that you’re bad,” Ventus says, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. “That just means you need more practice.”

Vanitas takes a wild gamble. He has no idea how to flirt. “With you?”

“Who else?” Ventus responds, kissing him again. It goes better the second time around, Ventus’s touches impossibly gentle and sending shivers crashing up and down Vanitas’s spine in the best possible way. Vanitas’s knees go weak, threatening to give out beneath him and completely ruin the moment. He tugs Ventus over to the edge of the fountain and makes him sit down, pulling away only long enough to collapse onto the cold concrete beside him.

Vanitas doesn’t bother to keep track of time, instead focusing on the array of kisses Ventus gives him. He tries his best to follow along with each one, careful to inscribe them all into his memory. There are the lingering, movie-magic kisses that steal his breath away. Sweet pecks pressed against the corners of his mouth and on the tip of his nose. Ones that stay so close that when they pull away, he can’t tell where Ventus’s breath ends and his begins. Kisses that melt into him from summer-soft smiles. Long ones, short ones, all impossibly gentle and impossibly full of love.

At some point, for as heavy as Vanitas’s limbs feel, he finds the strength to rest his hand on Ventus’s cheek once more. “Are we a couple now?” Vanitas whispers. He can’t bring himself to be any louder, not when this moment feels so fragile.

Ventus leans into the touch yet again. “...Are we?” The hesitance in his voice is clear, threatening to break Vanitas’s heart in two.

He won’t break Ventus's. Not this time.

“...I want to be.”

“I want to be, too.”

Vanitas takes a deep breath. It’s still too hard for him to say the words lurking just within his chest, hovering close to the skin. “I really like you. I have for a while,” then he adds, lamely, “A long time.”

Ventus laughs again, the sound so soft that he can barely hear it over the gentle babbling of the fountain behind them. “Me too. Then I think it’s agreed, don’t you?”

Vanitas makes no effort to fight the grin that dominates him, like seafoam bubbles popping on the tops of the tides as they crash against the shore. “Yeah.”

“So,” Ventus begins, something playful in his voice as his fingers scratch against the nape of Vanitas’s neck. He knows Ventus can feel the shivers washing over him, but he can’t bring himself to care. Not one bit. “Can I kiss my boyfriend again?”

Is this is how Vanitas dies, then so be it. He couldn’t ask for a better end. Face burning yet again, he nods.

So Ventus does.

Again and again and _again_.

And when Vanitas cracks open an eye at the sound of footsteps only to see a familiar pair of blue sandals and black Vans pass by, he lets the peanut gallery amuse itself.

“Hey, Naminé,” he hears Xion whisper at a level loud enough to be projected on a fucking stage. “Want to know a neat fact about the Sculpture Garden I learned from work?”

“I’d love to,” Naminé says.

“Did you know that Playboy magazine once rated the Sculpture Garden the number two place in LA to make out?”

“I didn’t.”

“Wanna know the number one place?” Xion asks, starting to giggle. Ventus, oblivious to the rest of the world that isn’t Vanitas, apparently doesn’t hear any of this. Vanitas aims a glare at the girls, daring them to finish their awful joke, but it’s hard to look angry when Ventus captures his lips in another sweet kiss.

“Of course, Xion,” Naminé says, biting back a giggle of her own.

“Vanitas’s room!” With that, Xion bursts into laughter so loud that not even Ventus can ignore them any longer. It doesn’t help that even _Naminé_ laughs at his expense. He pulls away sheepishly, his face the most beautiful shade of crimson Vanitas has ever seen. Scowling, Vanitas is the one to pull him in for another kiss.

But he’s sure to flip the girls off with as much ferocity as he can manage while simultaneously curling his toes from the shocks of electricity that race within him.

Though on the walk back home, he starts to possibly consider thanking them when Ventus swings their joined hands together and says casually, “You know, I think I’d like to try out what Xion said earlier. See if it lives up to the hype.”

Vanitas almost dies on the spot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in an earlier draft the kiss was supposed to happen in vanitas's apartment but the moment i realized i could do the "number 1 place to make out joke" that location changed so fucking fast. i have since spent 100k waiting to make that single joke


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didn't reply to the comments last chapter (aaah, sorry!!!) but i read them all and thank you!!! i'm very glad that people seem to have liked last chapter. took us long enough to get there, right?
> 
> disclaimer: i wish i came up with the makeout joke. i didn't. it's a somewhat well known joke and it's also one of my favorites, but is it my joke? i wish it was. and yes, there is a chapter count up! that may be give or take a chapter or two. i might have messed up my counting. we're getting close to the end, but there are still a few important things to cover!
> 
> now for some cute stuff. and some serious stuff! and some somber stuff.

iii.

“I’m not going if he is, Kairi. Seeing him at Naminé’s exhibit was bad enough! But at a _party_? No way.”

“Roxas, come _on_! I can’t _not_ invite him. He’s like, Aqua’s favorite resident ever. And Ven said she’s been an RA for three years. That’s a lot of residents!”

“Fine, invite him,” Roxas relents, pausing just long enough to take a very angry bite of his pita. “I don’t even know them. Why do I have to go?”

“Because the venue is huge, duh! And you’ll have fun, because all your friends are going. Besides,” Kairi says, her voice growing a little softer, “he’s changed a lot since middle school. If you give him a chance, I’m certain you and Rik-”

“-No, no, no! I don’t want to hear his name!” Roxas, the brat he is, covers his ears and turns away from the girl who frowns at him. After a moment, he snatches his pita off the table and sets it in his lap so he can keep eating even as he tries his hardest to ignore Kairi.

Meanwhile, Vanitas stays at the other end of the table and tries his hardest to ignore their collective bullshit. If they get kicked out of this Cava Grill for being too obnoxious, at least he’ll know that it wasn’t his fault.

Even if they do get kicked out, Vanitas wouldn’t particularly care much. Westwood is filled to the brim with fast-casual Chipotle knockoffs that bastardize just about any cuisine someone can think of. Cava Grill is just the mediterranean flavor.

Naminé would probably be sad, though. She was the one who insisted they all come here.

“Jeez, thanks again for planning Terra and Aqua’s graduation party, Kairi,” Ventus says, less to her and more to the chicken inside his grain bowl. “Now I know why Aqua never lets me plan anything…”

“No worries, Ven!” Kairi says, beaming at him even as she reaches across the table to thwack Roxas’s arm. “I love planning events. I’ve organized almost every volleyball party this year! I’m kinda a pro.”

“She’s really good,” Naminé confirms, although her eyes never stray from Vanitas’s phone.

How Kairi can hear her soft voice clearly enough to respond with a cheerful, “Aw, Naminoodle! You’re the best,” Vanitas has no idea.

Naminé flushes at the nickname and scrolls through the dates on Vanitas’s phone with a renewed purpose. Trying to find a date to go to the Broad before the quarter is over while also trying to navigate finals is the worst. Ventus and Xion had already submitted their picks, leaving Naminé as the final judge.

“Oh!” she says, pointing to one date, “I should be able to go then.” It’s been two days since her exhibit, and only now are the bags under her eyes starting to fade. That much socializing must have nearly murdered her.

“Are you positive.”

“Fairly.”

Vanitas shrugs and selects the date. After a few more taps, their trip is finally confirmed. A line of tension leaves Vanitas’s shoulders and he finally takes a bite of his own food.

“So we’re good?” Xion asks.

“Yeah,” Vanitas answers.

“Great! I’m excited. I haven’t been to any museums here yet.”

“We’re changing that,” Naminé says gravely, setting her hands on Xion’s shoulders. Fire burns in her pale blue eyes. “You have to see the Getty. It’s too close to us not to go.”

It’s a good thing they’re both staying for the summer; Xion has her job to work at, and Naminé is taking classes. Roxas and Kairi are both going home, but San Diego isn’t even that far away. They could hang out for a really long day trip, if Vanitas was willing to spend the gas.

From beside him, Ventus starts. Vanitas shoots him an odd look and glances over him, checking to see if he spilled food on himself or something. All his food remains out of his lap and in his bowl, leaving Vanitas with no idea as to what his problem is.

“Oh nooooo,” he groans, putting a lid over his food. “I promised Aqua I’d go to her floor event. I’m gonna be so late…”

“You’re leaving?” Xion asks.

“Yeah.” Ventus turns to face Vanitas, his gaze turning soft. Vanitas feels his stomach flip pleasantly in response. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Vanitas says dumbly. Their plans aren’t that exciting, just to go see a movie in Santa Monica and whittle away the afternoon on the pier. Vanitas is pretty sure it, and pretty much every activity they now do alone together, qualifies as a date.

Still, they have a _date_ planned. A date!

“Great!” Ventus stands up, but his eyes don’t leave Vanitas. He looks to the door, then back to Vanitas, seemingly settling on something.

He leans down and cups Vanitas’s cheek, moving slowly enough to give him an easy out if he wanted. Vanitas realizes what’s coming next with a pleasant summer heat blooming within.

He doesn’t really move, but he welcomes it easily.

Ventus kisses him so, so softly. It’s a short kiss, but one that leaves Vanitas with the ghost of a feeling still on his lips as Ventus offers the rest of his - no, _their_ \- friends a brief wave before dashing out the restaurant and down the street. Vanitas watches him go, affection bursting within him like an endless stream of fireworks.

Naminé and Xion both giggle softly behind him, but he only turns when he hears a completely scandalized, “ _What!?_ _”_ come out of Roxas and Kairi in unison. They both gape at him like he sprouted a second head.

Vanitas scowls at them both. “What, I can’t kiss my boyfriend goodbye?”

“Your _boyfri-_ ” Kairi’s scream is muffled by Roxas slapping his hand over her mouth so she doesn’t get them kicked out in earnest.

Roxas takes one look at Vanitas, then one long look at the giggling girls across from him, eyes narrowing suspiciously. “...How long ago did this happen? And why do _they_ ,” he points to Naminé and Xion, “seem to know, and not me and Kairi?”

“We caught them kissing after Naminé’s exhibit,” Xion explains helpfully. Vanitas is unable to respond, caught at the weirdest fucking crossroads between embarrassment, elation, and a sudden bout of… shyness?

He’s had a boyfriend for a grand total of two days, and already it’s reduced him to being a complete sap.

“And you didn’t tell us!?” Kairi demands, scooting into the empty space where Ventus just was to better glare at him. She’s not genuinely angry, but he doesn’t fully understand why she’s so offended.

So he points that out. “You’re acting like I forgot your birthday. What gives?”

“Vani-” she cuts herself off, her offended yelp cutting off in a quick intake of air - a gasp, maybe? The hardness in her face falls away, leaving only a soft smile behind. “Something big just happened in your life, Vanitas,” she explains gently. She’d probably grab his hand and squeeze it if it wasn’t currently wrapped around a fork. “We’re your friends. We want to celebrate good things like this with you!”

Roxas clearly doesn’t get what the big deal is (and doesn’t that make two of them?), but he still nods along with the girls. “Kairi’s being sappy-”

“-Hey!”

“-But she’s not all wrong,” Roxas finishes. “You really like him. That’s cool. Honestly, I don’t really get why you two weren’t together before now, but I’m happy for you.”

“It’s kind of a long story,” Xion helpfully adds. She isn’t wrong, either.

Vanitas glares down at his food. He doesn’t know why he’s glaring. It isn’t doing anything to keep the heat away from his face. Laughing, Kairi pulls him into a hug. “I’m really proud of you! You two are gonna be really happy together. I can tell.”

He doesn’t hug her back, but he mutters something that could possibly be misconstrued as a _thanks_ if there’s enough hair teased out of Kairi’s ponytail to cover her ears.

“Now,” Kairi says, pulling back and grinning at him with all the terror of the weird deep sea creature she is, “I want details. _All_ the details. And if you don’t answer me,” she adds sweetly, nearly singing the words, “then I guess I’ll just have to ask Ven, won’t I?”

Evil.

“I’m curious, too,” the she-devil adds. No wonder she was friends with whatever terror Kairi must have been in high school. “You two were pretty… um, occupied, when Xion and I saw you.”

“And you were still there an hour after you said bye to us,” Xion adds. “That’s a long time.”

Roxas makes a face and Kairi laughs. “I get it,” Kairi says happily. “I’ve been there, too.”

Actually, Vanitas takes it back. He doesn’t have friends. All he has are enemies that he’s let into his innermost circle against his best judgement. These freshmen all suck, every last one of them.

But with enough prodding, he wearily sighs and tells them the details. Starting from the very beginning, because he might as well give them the whole thing if they’re getting the climax early.

Besides, it feels kind of... well, kind of nice to talk about. He understands a little better why girls are so eager to gossip about their crushes, unable to deny the waves of giddiness crashing deep in his gut.

He leaves out all the details about the old man, but it’s fine. At least he can spin the story he tells them into a happy one, even if the picture is only half-complete.

 

* * *

 

iv.

Vanitas remembers this cemetery well. He wishes he didn’t.

He remembers the vivid green grass that lines freshly-paved asphalt as he drives along the lonely road that meanders past endless rows of graves. He remembers the small gate, its billiard up with the sun, as he drives in. He remembers the small parking lot by the visitor’s center, where he parks his car and gets out.

He remembers the small wooden overhang where they held the actual funeral and the standing graves that filled the background of his memory like a morgue. Just shelves and shelves of bodies and ashes.

The bastard must be buried there. All he needs to do is find the shelter, and his grave will follow.

Determined, Vanitas sets off, Xion at his side.

The grounds are immaculate. He has to give whatever saps who keep it clean their due. He just hopes they don’t volunteer to do this shit. Too depressing of a job to do for free, patriotism or not.

“The grave where my mom is buried is a lot smaller than this one. I’m amazed at how big this is.”

“A lot of people have died over the course of history, Xion.”

She cracks a small smile at that. “You’re not wrong.” She folds her hands behind her back as they walk, following the small one-way road towards their eventual destination. Vanitas barely sees any other people around them, leaving them virtually alone. There are thousands of people here, yet very few of them actually draw breath.

He wonders how many of these graves are still visited. Whose stories have been forgotten.

He wishes he could forget the bastard, but that would be too sweet a relief to ever happen. A more naive version of himself desperately believed that once Vanitas didn’t have to see him, he could leave the bastard in his past. That he’d never look back again.

That couldn’t be further from the truth.

“I bet we’re the first visitor the bastard’s ever gotten, you know. Feel honored,” Vanitas says, packing as much venom as he can into his voice. Not at her, of course. Never at her.

She doesn’t take it that way, thankfully. If she had, they probably would have stopped talking a long time ago. “I don’t think I will, actually.”

“...Good.”

Maybe Eraqus has been here before. The thought stings deep within him, painful to the touch. How Eraqus could choose that man, time and time again, Vanitas can’t understand. Did he truly not know what he did, or did he just not care?

Whatever the answer, he doubts he’ll find it here.

“I know our situations are different, but I used to visit my mom’s grave a lot in the first couple years after her death,” Xion says, drawing Vanitas out of his thoughts. He’s grateful for her, for the calming empathy that washes over him as she continues. “I think I mentioned this earlier, but my dad didn’t handle her death well. At all. It was really hard to talk to him about how I felt when he could barely face his own feelings. We went to therapy together, but there was so much I wanted to say. One hour a week wasn’t enough. Sometimes after school, I’d bike to her grave and spend the afternoon talking to her. It helped, for a little while.”

“For a little while? Why’d it stop?”

Xion smiles, but there’s no joy in the expression. All he can see there is sadness. “Because I was finally understanding something about myself, and I couldn’t face the possibility that if she was still alive, she’d be heartbroken to know that I wasn’t the son she loved so much.”

Xion doesn’t talk about it much. He doesn’t pry into the reasons why. It isn’t his place.

Not knowing what else he could do, Vanitas pulls her into a tight hug. She huffs out a laugh, but she returns the embrace gladly. “Don’t worry, Vanitas. I’m okay now.” She pulls away from him, and though the sadness in her smile remains, he sees gratitude there as well. “It took a long time for my dad to process my mom’s death, but by the time I finally came out to him, he tried to support me every way he could. He did all the legal paperwork for me and helped me understand what it’d be like to medically transition, that I didn’t have to do anything I wasn’t comfortable with. And… well, he told me that he thought my mom would have loved and supported me any way she could have, too.”

She gets a little embarrassed and looks down at her feet, worrying the edge of her girlfriend’s cardigan with her fingers. “Sorry about dumping all of that on you. I got a little carried away…”

“What? Xion, no. Don’t be ridiculous,” Vanitas says, starting to walk again. It’ll be harder for her to get caught up in needless guilt if she has to pay attention to where they’re headed. “I’ve endured enough speeches about friendship to know that friends are supposed to be there for each other. You wanna share some tough shit with me? Then go for it. I’m just…” he trails off, struggling against his own embarrassment. His desire to make sure she knows this, that he gives these words the power they deserve, wins out. “I’m happy. That you trust me enough to talk to me.”

He can’t look at her as he says it, but dammit. He said it. That’s enough of a victory.

“Thank you, Vanitas,” Xion says, her gratitude finally winning over the last of the sadness. “Though I guess the point I wanted to get at is that um, before I left for college I visited my mom’s grave again. And I talked a lot there. _Really_ talked. I’m not sure if she can hear me, wherever her soul is now, but it made me feel better. Maybe talking to the old man’s grave can make you feel better, too.”

“Yeah… maybe.” That’s the hope, at least.

He can never get the closure he truly wants, the closure he deserved. Death isn’t so kind as to provide a clean ending. It erases every word that could have come afterwards, leaving Vanitas hanging onto a page so incomplete that it left him with half a sentence whose direction he’ll never know for certain.

He can’t write his own ending, but at least he can close the damn book and leave it to gather dust on a shelf.

They reach the shelter where the funeral was held. The area is smaller than he remembers, the wooden overhang no longer as cavernous as it once was. He walks between the rows of concrete pews and stops in the center, just a few feet from where he and Ventus had sat almost a year and a lifetime ago.

If he blinks, he can still see that black box in front of him, standing on a pedestal like the bastard’s life was something to mourn and memorialize.

Disgusting.

Vanitas turns to the stone outcropping beside it, where he’s certain the old man’s ashes must now be. Yellow tape lines the entrance, warning them not to cross. Xion comes over to his side, frowning and needlessly apologetic.

He snorts. “Hey, Xion?”

“Yes?”

“You up for some trespassing?”

 

* * *

 

i.

On the morning of his eighteenth birthday, Vanitas wakes up to the sound of screaming and gunfire. Groaning, he palms around for his phone and waits for Xehanort’s commentary to absolutely-fucking-no-one on how accurate that particular depiction of a war zone is. The sobbing dies down, but no creaking voice rises to replace it.

Xehanort must have fallen asleep. With any luck, he’ll stay asleep until the nurse arrives. A peaceful morning is just about the best birthday gift Vanitas could hope for.

Phone in hand, he notices a new text notification, received at 12:01 the previous night. Safe in the solitude of his own room, Vanitas lets a grin stretch over his lips as he opens it. He already knows who sent it and he has a vague idea of what it’ll say, but reading the words sends desert wildflowers blooming all within his insides.

_Happy birthday, Vanitas!!! You’re a real adult now, welcome to the club! I have a gift for you. <3 Come find me before class starts, okay? :D _

His gaze lingers on that heart, warmth blossoming in his chest. He lets it occupy his mind as he goes through his morning routine. With Xehanort asleep, it goes faster than usual. The sun is just barely starting to rise by the time he’s finished walking Void around the neighborhood and burned through his own morning exercises. He’s careful to keep an eye on her as she trots by him for her breakfast. He keeps his own room clean, but the rest of the place has become a dump. The nurse only cleans the bedroom and bathroom that Xehanort drifts between. Besides, it’s easier to ignore the chaotic mess of the living room than it is for Vanitas to risk being seen by Xehanort and berated for some crime he’s innocent of while cleaning.

She eats, Vanitas gets dressed, puts her back in his room, and leaves for school. He bikes faster than usual, urged forward by the trepidation and excitement that fights a war within him. When he comes to a stop by the bike racks, Ventus is already there, waiting for him. There’s a frappuccino in his hand. Whipped cream spills out over the top of the lid, covered in so much chocolate sauce that it’s hard to see the white underneath.

It’s perfect.

“There you are! Happy birthday!” Ventus says, waiting just long enough for Vanitas to lock his bike in place before throwing his arms around Vanitas’s neck. The drink bleeds condensation into the shoulder of Vanitas’s ratty hoodie, but it isn’t big enough to counterbalance the warmth enveloping his front from head to toe.

Hesitantly, Vanitas brings his hands to rest against the small of Ventus’s back. The sunlight in his arms shivers and laughs softly. Wildflowers bloom in his stomach and Vanitas tilts his head just enough for their temples to connect.

They stay together long enough to attract a few stares from other students. Ventus doesn’t see them pass, not with his back to the world behind him, but Vanitas glares at anyone stupid enough to dare eye contact. That usually gets them to put their heads down and keep walking.

The hug lasts longer than hugs probably should, even if Vanitas isn’t counting the seconds. He pulls himself away and snatches the drink out of Ventus’s hands. He takes a long sip, letting the taste of sweet chocolate and coffee flood his tongue. The barista made it just the way Vanitas likes it.

“Hey! What if that was for me, huh?”

“You don’t like coffee,” Vanitas says, turning the cup to see what name Ventus had scrawled on the cup. “To Ven’s favorite birthday boy,” Vanitas reads, feeling his face go hot. He forces a scowl in place of the tiny, satisfied grin threatening to take over. “Is it your birthday today? Are you your favorite birthday boy?”

Ventus laughs, even as he turns a shade of red similar to whatever Vanitas must currently be. He punches Vanitas’s arm, but there’s no force in the gesture at all. “Fine, you’re right! It’s for you. It’s not much, but I figured you’d like it.”

Vanitas takes another sip of the drink, giving Ventus all the answer he needs.

Vanitas drifts through the first half of the day in a comfortable haze, content to lose himself in the memory of Ventus pressed against him, his laughter soft in Vanitas’s ear. He has no fucking clue how to kiss someone, but he’d like to try with Ventus. He’d probably get laughed at for having no idea what to do. As much as that would suck, something tells him that Ventus would just pull him in for more practice.

A shiver races down his spine at the thought. His eyes dart over to the girl next to him, who is also completely ignoring the teacher who drones on at the front of the classroom. Her particular method is by scrawling the same name all over her notebook, emblazoned with tiny hearts clinging to the edges of her blocky letters. He has no idea what her name is, but damn if he doesn’t feel a kinship with her.

Ventus is already sitting at the planter by the time Vanitas fights his way through the cafeteria for his shitty salad. Grinning, he hands Vanitas a chocolate bar. “Apparently my mom snuck this into my lunch for you,” he explains. “She just texted me to tell you she sends you all her love.”

“Is that a direct quote?” Vanitas asks, setting the chocolate bar off to the side. It’ll be a good reward for shoving all this wilted lettuce down his throat.

“Well, she added _cucciolo_ at the end, but basically.”

He’s content to spend the rest of lunch letting Ventus’s chatter wash over him. He tries to ask if Vanitas is getting any other gifts, but Xehanort grew tired of birthdays a while ago. Vanitas is quick to shut down that topic of conversation. Besides, it’s easy enough to distract him by mentioning the fact that he’ll be an uncle any day now. That one fact gives enough ammunition for Ventus to ramble on for the rest of lunch.

He really loves his family. Anyone who knows him can see that.

Vanitas can’t deny the envy he feels. All he’ll ever have is a single tie that stays wrapped around his neck, ready to squeeze the life out of him the moment he steps out of place.

Lunch ends and they go their separate ways. It takes a few more painful hours for the day to end, but Vanitas is quick to go to the bike rack and wait for that burst of sunshine to see him off.

Except Ventus doesn’t come. Vanitas waits for ten minutes, but he never comes. He hasn’t gotten a text, either.

He swallows his disappointment, gets on his bike, and heads back to the bungalow. The nurse’s car still sits in the driveway. A little weird, but nothing to dwell on. Maybe he got here late this morning.

Vanitas opens the screen door and shoves the actual door open with enough force to keep it from catching on its hinges the way it usually does. The moment he steps inside, he hears Xehanort’s voice.

Calling for him.

And he sounds even unhappier than usual.

His body seizes up, freezing him in the doorway. He could step back outside, maybe. Lie and say that it was the nurse coming in, not him. He could go get run over by a truck, maybe, because at least in the hospital he wouldn’t have to face whatever punishment is waiting for him.

That thought breaks the ice in his body, replacing it with rage. He hasn’t even fucking done anything, so what could he possibly be angry over? Unless… he was angry over Vanitas letting him sleep in that morning.

( _Pass out, whatever. Maybe Xehanort would have a normal sleep schedule if he actually slept at night like a normal human being. Who would have thought?_ )

That creaking voice calls for him once more. Gritting his teeth, Vanitas heads down the hallway and towards his doom.

...The door to his own room is open. Upon seeing him, Void scrambles out of his room and stops at his side, whimpering softly. He scratches her head, hoping to calm her down. Why was someone in his room? What’s going on?

“You called for me?” Vanitas asks, lingering in the doorway of Xehanort’s bedroom. He’s propped up on his bed, a single trembling hand bringing a mug to his lips. He sets it back down on the table next to him, sending liquid splashing over the rim of the cup and all over the table. Vanitas bites back a sigh and looks around for something he can use to clean that up with. Maybe Xehanort will just order him to do that and then he’ll be done.

“Yes, I did. You’re eighteen now, aren’t you?”

Vanitas is careful to keep his posture straight, his eyes lowered just enough to project deference. Still, he feels his eyebrows raise. He thought Xehanort forgot. “Yeah.”

“That means you’re an adult now, boy. Do you recognize that?”

What is he getting at? “...Yeah.”

“I had already gone off to the military at your age.” Vanitas tries not to let his frown show. What is Xehanort getting at? Is he telling Vanitas to go join the army? Because that’s not a possibility.

Vanitas stays quiet, waiting for Xehanort to continue.

“Each day I’m getting closer to death. I can’t care for myself the way I used to. I’ve decided that it’s time for me to accept a live-in caretaker. He’ll be moving into your room,” Xehanort explains with all the ease of someone describing the weather.

Dread spreads throughout Vanitas, carried by the spiders crawling over his skin and biting into his bones. He thinks-

-But that can’t be possible, can it? Xehanort wouldn’t, he _couldn’t_ -

"-Two hours should be sufficient time to take whatever you need from your room.”

Vanitas feels like he’s been punched, every bit of wind knocked clear out of his lungs. “Y-you can’t be serious. This is a joke, right? It has to be.”

“Don’t use that tone with me, boy! I provided for you for eighteen years. You’re old enough now to provide for yourself.”

Every lesson that’s been drilled into Vanitas leaves, replaced by pure panic. “What the _fuck!?”_ he screeches. “You- you can’t fucking do this to me! You can’t kick me out! I still have to go to school!” He’s screaming, and he sounds like a toddler pitching a fit, he knows, but he can’t bring himself to care when his mind is bleeding pure fear into him.

“Two hours. If you leave the dog behind, I’ll have it euthanized. Have I made myself clear?” Xehanort is calm, so calm. How long has he been planning this? How many days has he waited to kick Vanitas out on his ass?

Vanitas’s legs shake. It’s a miracle he’s able to step out of Xehanort’s room without collapsing. He slams the door shut behind him, and though he hears Xehanort shouting at him to _leave that door open, boy_ , he doesn’t obey. Instead, he makes his way to the bathroom and collapses in front of the toilet just in time to throw up every single thing he ate that day.

When he finishes and there’s nothing but bile left to coat his tongue, he drags himself to his feet and sticks his mouth under the faucet to spit out the rest. He feels Void pressed against his legs, whining again, but if he reaches down to pet her he doesn’t think he can get up again.

He forces himself to go to ( _what was, he guesses_ ) his room, feet feeling like cinder blocks every step of the way. The bungalow is far from big, but it might as well be a fucking football field for how long it takes to cross the hallway. He pushes the door open only to find the nurse standing off to the side, a box in his arms.

It isn’t hard to figure out who’s moving in.

Rage is easy. Rage is familiar. Rage gives Vanitas strength as he surges forward. He curls his hand into a fist, his thumb resting over his fingers the way Xehanort taught him to punch all those years ago, and drives it straight into the asshole’s face.

“Get out! Get the fuck out!” he screams, shoving the nurse into the wall as he groans and clutches his face. Blood trickles from his nostrils and Vanitas thinks he may have broken the guy’s nose.

Good.

When the nurse doesn’t move, Vanitas grabs the first thing he sees - an old novel he had to read for English class a few weeks back - and flings it at him. “I _said_ get out!” He feels like fire, anger consuming everything within him and reducing it all to ash.

It takes two pillows, a harness, three books, and a porcelain dog figurine Ventus bought him last Christmas flung at the asshole to get him to finally fucking leave. The dog lays on the ground in pieces, its painted face too broken to smile up at Vanitas any longer.

He punches the wall so hard his knuckles split open and the drywall caves in. The pain helps to ground him, clearing his mind just enough to let him do what he needs to do. He grabs a few trash bags from the extras he keeps in his dressers and shoves his things into it. Clothes, a couple blankets, his toiletries, all the toys and food he has for Void - everything he cares about enough to keep gets distilled into two black trash bags and his backpack.

It only takes an hour to pack.

The nurse’s car is still outside, but the nurse is nowhere to be seen. Xehanort’s door is closed still, but he can hear the tv play within. Maybe they’re both in there.

Or maybe they’re not. Vanitas doesn’t care anymore.

He passes by Xehanort’s keys where they lay on the kitchen counter, serving as a shiny paperweight for the unopened mail beneath it. The bastard hasn’t driven in over a year. What does he need a car for?

Vanitas fishes his own keys out of his pocket. He leaves his house key in place of Xehanort’s car key.

A simple trade.

The nurse was stupid enough to leave his wallet nearby. Vanitas opens it and peeks inside. A thin stripe of green sits within. Vanitas takes it out and counts out the bills. Two-hundred dollars isn’t bad. It’s much more than what meager savings Vanitas has, anyways.

He pockets the money and tosses the wallet back onto the counter. If the nurse has a problem, he can consider it is security deposit. An awfully cheap one, too.

Void is well-behaved enough that she trots at Vanitas’s side as he gathers his things.

A trash bag in each hand, backpack strapped to his shoulders, dog at his feet, and a single key in hand, Vanitas leaves the bungalow behind.

He puts his body on autopilot as he throws his stuff into the back of Xehanort’s car. Void hops into the passenger seat as Vanitas slides into the driver’s seat, though he pops open the glove box to check to see what’s in there. Cops in the movies always ask for license and registration, and he knows that car insurance is a thing. Thankfully, he has his own license and the other documents seem to be accounted for. He should be okay.

He’ll have to figure out how to get this car in his name, but that’s a problem for later. For now, he just has to get out of here.

His body takes him to Ventus’s house. There’s no car in the driveway, but that doesn’t stop Vanitas from parking by the waist-high wooden slats Ventus calls a fence and knocking on the front door.

There’s no answer.

Vanitas pulls his phone out and punches in Ventus’s number on his tiny keyboard. There’s no need to pull up his contact when it’s the only number Vanitas has bothered to memorize besides his own.

He brings his phone to his ear and listens to the dial tone, letting it ring and ring.

Once the call goes to Ventus’s cheerful voicemail, he tries again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Still, no answer.

The events of the day finally catch up to Vanitas and his autopilot comes to a shuddering stop. His legs give out, tired of supporting him any longer, and he crashes down to the welcome mat below him.

Pressure builds up behind his eyes and he’s powerless to stop it.

The adulthood he’s supposed to embrace is a distant reality, as Vanitas breaks down and sobs in the way that only children do. Broken, scared, and wailing.

And when his voice is hoarse and his tears are spent, he gets to his feet, gets into his car, and he leaves.

He doesn’t have anywhere that wants him, but all he knows is that he can’t stay in this shitty town for one moment longer and that if he goes west for long enough, he’ll finally see the ocean with his own eyes.


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You have FIFTEEN (15) new VOICEMAILS.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is very short and very different and i like it a lot! playing with formatting is fun. expect an update tomorrow by the way! 
> 
> a few other things: THANK YOU FOR 400 KUDOS!!!! I AM SO HONORED AND GRATEFUL!!! THANK YOU FOR READING (THANK YOU ATLA AND NIS FOR BETAING) and i hope you continue to enjoy this fic!!!
> 
> please check out [this fanart](https://twitter.com/ParasiticBun/status/1130256629990010880) of this fic's vanitas!!! and HIS DOGS!!!! void and gear are exactly how i imagined them, i'm so happy. while you're at it, you should definitely read the fic that the first picture is fanart for, [All the Stars in Texas](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18819931), which i ABSOLUTELY adored and will continue to rec to people to read.

i.

Alerts 

**02/13  
**ONE NEW MESSAGE  
FROM: Ventus  
Received: 6:45 P.M.

_Hey, saw your calls! Sorry I couldn’t answer. I was at the hospital and my mom made me turn off my phone. BUT I’M AN UNCLE NOW!!!! :D :D :D Her name is Chiara and she looks like a little raisin. I’ll show you a picture tomorrow to prove it, you’re gonna laugh. Anyways, what’s up?_

ONE MISSED CALL  
Received: 9:32 P.M.

 

**02/14  
** TWO NEW MESSAGES  
FROM: Ventus  
Received: 12:20 P.M.

_Are you at school today? I didn’t see you this morning. :( Are you sick?  
_

Received: 3:37 P.M.

_I tried to look for your bike, but I didn’t see it at the racks. I bet you’re sleeping through all my texts, you big jerk. Guess I have to eat all this chocolate I got for you by myself! :P Feel better soon!_

 

**02/15  
** ONE NEW MESSAGE  
FROM: Ventus  
Received: 10:13 A.M.

_Man, get on Facebook already! I sent you a video. You need to watch it. It’s the perfect thing to make you feel better. :) <3 _

 

**02/17  
** TWO NEW MESSAGES  
FROM: Ventus  
Received: 12:46 P.M.

_Vanitas? Did you break your phone and die or something? You’ve never missed two school days in a row. :/_

Received: 5:28 P.M.

_You haven’t been on Facebook, either. What’s going on?_

TWO MISSED CALLS  
Received: 5:44 P.M.  
Received: 5:45 P.M.

ONE NEW VOICEMAIL

 

**02/19  
** ONE NEW MESSAGE  
FROM: Ventus  
Received: 6:10 P.M.

_Vanitas?_

ONE MISSED CALL  
Received: 7:00 P.M.

ONE NEW VOICEMAIL

 

**02/20  
** TWO NEW MESSAGES  
FROM: Ventus  
Received: 7:11 P.M.

_WHERE ARE YOU_

FROM: Unknown Number  
Received: 7:27 P.M.

_Vanitas, this is Eraqus. Please call me as soon as possible._  

FOUR MISSED CALLS  
Received: 7:15 P.M.  
Received: 7:16 P.M.  
Received: 7:17 P.M.  
Received: 7:23 P.M.

TWO NEW VOICEMAILS

 

**02/21  
** TWO MISSED CALLS  
Received: 6:10 A.M.  
Received: 2:35 P.M. 

TWO NEW VOICEMAILS

 

**02/22  
** ONE MISSED CALL  
Received: 9:24 A.M.

ONE NEW VOICEMAIL

 

**02/23  
** FIVE MISSED CALLS  
Received: 3:29 A.M.  
Received: 5:15 A.M.  
Received: 12:03 P.M.  
Received: 4:55 P.M.  
Received: 10:10 P.M.

FIVE NEW VOICEMAILS

 

**02/26  
** ONE MISSED CALL  
Received: 2:36 P.M. 

ONE NEW VOICEMAIL

 

**02/28  
** ONE MISSED CALL  
Received: 2:33 P.M.

ONE NEW VOICEMAIL

 

**03/01  
** ONE MISSED CALL  
Received: 4:52 P.M.

 

**03/02  
** ONE MISSED CALL  
Received: 8:59 A.M.

 

**03/03  
** ONE MISSED CALL  
Received: 2:34 P.M.

 

**03/04  
** ONE MISSED CALL  
Received: 2:32 P.M.

 

**03/05  
** ONE MISSED CALL  
Received: 2:38 P.M.

ONE NEW VOICEMAIL

VOICEMAIL BOX FULL.

 

**03/06  
** TWO NEW MESSAGES  
FROM: Ventus  
Received: 12:09 P.M.

_Vanitas, if you can read this, please call me. I hope you’re okay._

Received: 12:10 P.M.

_I miss you._


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaand here's a full chapter!

i.

Vanitas feels like a feral animal. He finally gave in and bought a membership to YMCA last week just so he could remember what a hot shower feels like, but the fee to join was more than he expected.

On top of that, he didn’t read the parking signs right _again_ , and so he came back from walking Void to a scrap of paper tucked into a bright green envelope on his dashboard. _Again_.

He’s running out of money and he doesn’t know what he’s going to do when it’s all gone.

He keeps his phone with him everywhere, charges it in the library whenever its battery runs low, but every time he sees a new notification it fills him with anxiety. At first he was too angry to respond to Ventus’s messages, but now it feels too late. With every additional missed call, the idea of answering only becomes more and more terrifying.

He can’t go back to that town. Not when that _bastard_ is there. The bastard doesn’t leave his fucking room, not anymore, but his shadow is wide enough to cast a pallor over every street in that godforsaken town.

Besides, it wouldn’t matter if he did go back. He’s missed so much school at this point that his previously-mediocre grades probably can’t be pulled up enough to let him pass even if he did. He’s not going to graduate. He had applied to a few colleges back in November after enough prodding from Ventus, but nowhere he actually wanted to go. He hasn’t bothered to check his email and he’s certain that any mail under his name would have been burned by now. It’s not like it even matters. He would have gotten rejected everywhere anyways.

He’s tired, and he’s hungry, and he’s sick of sleeping in his car at night parked on the street in front of empty buildings because his very _existence_ makes residents in their warm little houses nervous-

-But he doesn’t know where else to go.

The only other place he’s known is the desert and there’s nothing useful there. At this time of year, it still dips close to below freezing at night. He can’t put Void through that kind of torture. All he could think of was driving west until the freeway gave way to surface streets and sapphire street signs.

The sound of the waves, the warmth of the sunlight as it presses into his clothes like a gentle embrace, the grit of the sand between his fingers, the smell of the sea - they all bring him comfort when nothing else will. It doesn’t give him hope, not exactly, but it keeps him from losing every trace of it.

The first day he came here, all he did was sit on the shore and let the water lap at his toes. Even though he got a ticket because apparently parking his car for three hours in a single location with no meter is illegal, the fifty dollar cost he’s forced himself not to think about is worth it.

He spent his life in a boring suburb. Nobody gives a shit about parking in the suburbs.

Everybody gives a shit about parking here. There are so many stupid little laws that he wasn’t aware existed until he already broke them. The rules for where he can park and for how long change from street to street, even if everything else looks the same. Even if there’s no sign aside from a street sweeping warning, he can’t leave his car parked in the same place for longer than three days. It’s stupid. It’s ridiculous.

But it’s better than Venice. He tried going there for a day, unsettled by the wary eyes that peered out at him from within light-filled homes. He found an empty street full of nothing but blackened businesses all left for dead for the night and tried to sleep in his car, only to be woken up by a cop knocking on his window and asking him for identification.

All he had to give the man was his old school ID. He doesn’t know why he still has it. The man apologized even as he issued Vanitas a fine for unauthorized camping (seriously?), and the shame of the whole event burned more intensely than the fine he received.

The cop tried to convince him to go find a shelter, but Vanitas had walked by a few of them at that point. He saw the overcrowded facilities and the waiting lists just to get inside. Besides, he’s afraid of what would happen to the car if he did. Where would he park it? What would he do with the few trash bags full of belongings he keeps hidden in his trunk?

More importantly, what would happen to his dog? He’d kill anyone who tried to touch her.

At least in Santa Monica it isn’t illegal for him to _exist_.

The beach is always so crowded, full of people of every size and shape and smell, that no one blinks at eye at one more scrappy kid in dingy clothes wandering along the beach. He’s a nobody here. It’s better than being an enemy.

Besides, he’s starting to understand how things work around here. He has enough food for Void to last her a while, leaving him to subsist mostly off the McDonald’s dollar menu. He’s no different than the people sleeping in tents just off the main streets, but he gets fewer uneasy stares from passerby if they’re unable to figure that out.

It isn’t great by any means, but where else would he go?

Vanitas’s phone vibrates in his pocket and he thinks, for the fifth time, that he should just snap the thing in half and leave it in a trash can somewhere. He sits on a bench just off the beach, Void sitting patiently at his heels as his hand hovers over his pocket.

He’s an idiot who gives into his own curiosity too easily, in the end. He pulls out his phone to check what made his phone go off this time. It’s not a call today, but a new message. Against his better judgement, Vanitas opens it.

It’s from Ventus.

_Vanitas, if you can read this, please call me. I hope you’re okay._

And then,

_I miss you._

That awful pressure builds up behind his eyelids, but Vanitas refuses to give in. He’ll take the headache that’s soon to follow over crying. He’s sick of crying. It leaves him feeling sick and pathetic.

Even that threat doesn’t stop him from reading Ventus’s messages over and over again. It’s so easy to imagine him speaking those words. He still reels from the residual shock of betrayal that lingers from crying on Ventus’s doorstep.

He has no reason to still be angry. Ventus texted him back the moment he could, didn’t he? He’s been faithfully calling him almost every single day for three weeks straight; the only reason why he doesn’t leave voicemails anymore is because Vanitas’s voicemail box must be too stuffed with his worried voice to hold anything else. Logically, he isn’t at fault.

If only Vanitas could temper his emotions with logic.

( _If only the horizon could ever become something closer than a blurry shape in the distance._ )

But not even that confusing mess within him is enough to drown out how badly he misses his best friend. His only friend. With shaking hands, Vanitas presses the call button. He raises his phone to his ear and tries not to let his anxiety choke him. Ventus misses him too, after all.

“ _Hello? Vanitas?”_ Ventus’s voice is so small, so full of a hesitant hope. “ _Is it really you?”_

“Hello, Ventus.” The curl of his name feels so familiar. It threatens to choke him. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“ _Oh my god_ ,” Ventus says, and he begins to cry. It’s weird, listening to someone cry over the phone. Ventus’s ragged breathing comes out as bursts of static over their shaky connection, broken up by sporadic hiccups. “ _Where-_ ” a sniffle and a gasp cuts him off, “- _where are you?”_

“Santa Monica. It’s a beach town in LA. Or by it. I don’t know how the boundaries work.”

“ _But you’re safe? You’re- you’re okay?”_

Vanitas chews his lip. “I’m not dead,” he says, and then adds as an afterthought, “Sorry.”

“ _What? Vanitas, no- why would you be sorry that you’re alive?”_

“No, I’m not sorry about that.” Not entirely, at least. “Sorry for not calling earlier. It’s been,” Vanitas swallows, searching for the simplest way to describe what he’s been through. He settles on something. “Tough.”

“ _God, Vanitas, I bet!_ ” It’s a small victory that Ventus isn’t crying as hard now. He still gasps between words, still sniffles very clearly into his phone, but at least Vanitas can make out his words over the hiss of static. “ _I heard about what your asshole dad did to you from Mister Eraqus. Do you have a place to stay? What are you doing about food?”_

“I took the old man’s car and some cash. I’ve gotten good at reading the dollar menu.”

Ventus’s laugh is small, still watery, but it’s there. “ _I’ve been worried for weeks. Look, I’m at school right now, but if you’re in LA, maybe you can drive back by the time school ends. I’ll meet you wherever you want me to._ ”

And suddenly Vanitas remembers why he spent so long avoiding these messages. “I can’t go back there, Ventus.”

The line goes so silent that Vanitas has to check just to make sure that the call didn’t drop. After an eternity, Ventus speaks. “ _...What?”_

“You heard me. I can’t do it. I won’t.”

“ _But-_ ”

“-But nothing. I can’t be in the same town as that bastard anymore.”

“ _You wouldn’t need to go back to him! I wouldn’t let you even if you wanted to. Stay with me at my house. My parents love you. They won’t mind._ ”

“No.” Vanitas’s nails have grown out much longer than he likes to keep them. They dig into his palm when he curls his hand into a fist. He doesn’t know where he can get a nail clipper without having to buy one and the last time he ripped his nails off, he made himself bleed.

He feels so lost, but even then, he can’t go back. Why is Ventus making this so _hard?_

“ _Don’t be stupid. Where are you even staying right now? I know you don’t know anyone out there. Come home already._ ”

That simple word is enough to flip a switch somewhere deep within Vanitas, wrenching him away from the relief Ventus’s voice gave him. “Home? You think that _hell_ was a _home_ for me, Ventus? You’re wrong. Dead. Fucking. _Wrong!”_

He’s screaming into his phone, loud enough to attract several worried stares from tourists passing by.

Loud enough to make his poor puppy cower. If he didn’t want to drown himself in the ocean, he definitely does now. He reaches a hand down to Void and gently scratches her head, trying to calm her down.

The line goes terrifyingly silent. Vanitas has to pull it away from his ear and check the screen just to make sure that the call didn’t end.

Something buzzes in the background. Judging by what time it is, it must be the bell for their next class. “ _Fine. Then I’ll come to you._ ” Ventus sighs, but there’s a resolve in his voice that shocks Vanitas. “ _Look. I have to go now, but I’ll be there, okay? Tomorrow morning, at the latest. I think I can convince my mom to let me skip one day of school._ ”

He should apologize. He doesn’t, the moment soon lost as he processes what Ventus says. “Ventus, what are you talking about-”

“- _Just, whatever you do, don’t you dare turn off your phone. Got it?”_ There’s a fraction of the anger Ventus deserves to be spewing out at Vanitas in those words. Not enough, though. Not nearly enough.

This can’t be real. This can’t be happening. Too many emotions swirl within Vanitas. He feels like he’s stomping on ants trying to shut them all down. He can’t deal with this right now.

But Ventus is waiting for a response, so he forces himself to speak. “Yeah. I won’t. Promise.”

Ventus likes promises. Besides, his phone was never off in the first place. He just… didn’t use it, he guesses.

Suddenly, he’s exhausted.

“ _Good. I’ll call you when I’m out of school. Talk to you soon, Vanitas._ ”

“Bye.”

It’s about time to move his car, anyways. Two hour street parking sucks, but it’s better than getting a third fifty dollar ticket. He treks back to the street that he left his car on, gets Void to hop in the backseat, and moves his car ten feet forward.

It’s stupid, but whatever. With the task done, Vanitas gets out of his car and wanders the streets, Void at his side, until he finds a few tables outside a coffee shop that he can sit at. He doesn’t buy anything, but he shoots dirty looks at anyone who stares at him for too long. He’s not in the mood to indulge strangers.

Part of him wishes he could doze off, but it feels dangerous to do so in the daytime. The best he can manage is zoning out and trying to lose his thoughts to the blue sky above.

He snaps back to himself at the sound of his phone buzzing in his pocket. Vanitas snatches it up and flips it open to see Ventus’s name illuminated on the tiny screen.

He thinks about not answering it.

He really does.

But he accepts the call.

They talk for hours, much longer than they’ve ever talked on the phone before. Vanitas doesn’t talk about what happened in that bungalow, not really.

He does talk about what the past three weeks have been like. He’s not sure why he does. Maybe it’s out of some desperate hope to have Ventus understand what he’s feeling. The fear, the need to constantly be on guard, the sheer loneliness of having no one else to talk to.

“ _Are you sure you don’t want to come back? Not… not even with me?”_ Ventus asks.

“I can’t do it, Ventus. I just can’t. This is the first time in my life I’ve felt free for longer than a few minutes.”

Scared and hungry and as miserable as he is, that fact remains true.

And it’s the strangest thing, to hear someone cry for him, but the sound coming through his shitty reception is unmistakable for anything else but sorrow.

 

* * *

  

iii.

“Way to be late to your own apartment,” Ventus says outside Vanitas’s apartment door as Vanitas drags himself down the hallway. Ventus’s asshole grin falls the moment he sees whatever haggard expression must have taken residence on Vanitas’s face.

“Hey… you okay?” Ventus asks softly, his hand hovering in the air when Vanitas finally gets close enough to touch. They both learned the hard way a few days ago when Vanitas caught a whiff of the dead bastard’s favorite brand of sencha while walking past some restaurant in Little Tokyo and promptly lost his mind to the skies for a solid ten minutes. It doesn’t happen as often as it once did, but it was still enough to freak Ventus out.

Freak them both out, honestly.

So Ventus tried to be helpful and calm Vanitas down with a hug, and Vanitas freaked out even _more_.

Vanitas keeps telling himself that it’s gone, dragged down to the bottom of the ocean, but for a split second he thought he could see that ball and chain washed up on the sand once more.

They had a long talk after that, one that ended with Ventus (very unhappily) agreeing to keep his distance if Vanitas is ever out-of-sorts. He doesn’t have to leave, but touching is still a bit too much. Still a bit too close to what they used to be.

Vanitas tries to shove his keys in the door. It takes him three separate keys to figure it out. “Had a therapy session today. It was rough.”

Minnie is really fucking good at her job, but even her gentle words and constant affirmations don’t help much when the memories batter him down. He needs it, but it’s like cleaning out an infected wound. There’s no way it won’t hurt.

“Oh,” Ventus says, following Vanitas inside once he finally gets the door open. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Terra and Aqua are still coming over for dinner, right?” It took a lot of pleading on Ventus’s behalf (and maybe a bribe that he’d have to come over an hour earlier in exchange, one that Ventus was all too happy to fulfill), but Vanitas finally relented. Their last dinner together in the dorms was… well, it was fine. A little awkward, but more fine than he remembers being around them both.

Really, what made it the most awkward was that Ventus immediately told the both of them what had happened the night before. Neither of them were exactly surprised, but still.

“Yeah. Do you want to cancel?”

Vanitas considers it. If he did, then he’d just have to push it off to _another_ day, and that sounds equally unappealing. “Can you have them push it back an hour?”

“Okay,” Ventus says, getting out his phone. Vanitas kicks his shoes off, reminds Ventus to take his own off before wandering around his apartment and tracking dirt all over the place, and promptly crashes face-first onto his bed. The sudden weight is enough to jostle his dogs. He tilts his head just enough to see Void sleepily blink at him, but Gear takes it as an invitation to come try to lick his face.

Groaning, her pushes her off. “Quit it,” he says. She settles for curling up at his side instead. He takes it, showing his own approval by scratching behind her ears. He hears rustling on the other side of the room and a quiet sigh. Ventus must have sat down at Vanitas’s desk to wait this out.

It takes the better part of twenty minutes, all of which Vanitas spends working through the breathing exercises Minnie made him practice specifically for times like this, for him to come back to some sense of himself. He can practically feel Ventus’s worry radiating off him in waves.

Slowly, he braces his hands against his bed and pushes himself up into a sitting position. He moves his feet and rolls his neck, finally feeling the hollowness in his chest fade away.

“You can come over here,” Vanitas says, scooting over to give Ventus room to sit next to him. Ventus scrambles over, though he’s careful not to touch Vanitas even as he settles himself. He’s just worried about setting Vanitas off. Which is stupid, because he’s not made of glass, but…

...Maybe not entirely unfounded.

Being friends with Ventus was difficult mostly because of how badly they wanted _more_ at every opportunity. _Dating_ Ventus is difficult for other, more complicated reasons. If entering into a relationship simply meant that everything was the same except now they kissed, maybe it wouldn’t be this hard.

Between the two of them, there are years of baggage to sort out, one painful piece at a time. It was easier to shove that all into a closet and ignore it until the hinges burst open and it spilled all over them, the way they were able to when they were just friends. They can’t ignore that pain the same way they used to. They’re trying to create some shambling wreck of a life together and that require knowing when to give over pieces of themselves and when to pull back.

At least, that’s what Vanitas has managed to gather from the two separate, hours-long conversations he had over Facetime with Xion. He barely has any idea about how to be a half-decent friend. For all the advice he gave her when she first started to date Naminé, it only took him a grand total of three days of being in a relationship himself to realize he had zero idea how to be in a relationship himself.

Xion’s been good, though. She’s been helpful. Best of all, she knows better than to laugh at him when he asks a question he knows is idiotic.

“It sucks seeing you like that,” Ventus admits, still careful not to touch him. Vanitas grabs his hand and laces their fingers together. Ventus squeezes his hand softly. It’s nice. “I can’t do anything to help, either. Sometimes I feel like I make it worse. That’s what sucks the most.”

“First of all, stop that. You never make me _worse_ , what the hell.” That earns him an especially tight squeeze to his hand, which he tries his best to return. “Second, you can’t swoop in and rescue me every time I stub my toe.”

“That was a lot bigger than you stubbing your toe, though! Don’t try to deny it,” he says, frustration creeping over him and leaking into Vanitas. Why is talking so hard? It’s ridiculous.

Though Ventus has a point and Vanitas loves ( _because he does, doesn’t he? With all of his heart_ ) him enough to concede. “Fine. You’re right. It is.”

Ventus still isn’t happy.

Vanitas pushes through the sudden ball of fear in his stomach and rifles through the box of advice Xion’s left in his mind. She hasn’t had many fights with Naminé. The fact that she’s had any is surprising, given how perfect they usually seem together. Then again, he knows them well enough to know how allergic they both are to conflict with people they love.

He’d take an unhappy Ventus sitting at his side than a Ventus that hides himself away when things don’t go his way any day. Vanitas has no idea how to deal with the latter, and the last time Ventus stuffed his emotions down his throat they stopped talking for four months.

He’d rather cut off his own foot than have to deal with that again.

_I think it’s helpful to understand where the other person is coming from, even if you don’t agree_ , he remembers Xion saying. Vanitas can feel a frown dragging his lips down, though his only comes from concentration.

That’s when it hits him - why Ventus is upset.

“Ventus, you don’t need to hug me every time I feel like shit. When I get numb like that, I don’t want to be touched. That’s not on you. That’s in general. Just… just be around. Me needing time to myself to gather my thoughts doesn’t mean you need to put yourself in time out until I’m better.”

That gets Ventus to laugh, even if it’s not much for than a light chuckle. “Time out? Really?”

“Yeah.”

“I can accept that,” Ventus says, shrugging a little. “It’s different, is all. I really like having someone, you know, physically comforting me when I’m upset. My whole family is like that.”

Vanitas makes a mental note to try kissing Ventus next time he gets upset over something that isn’t a fight of their own making.

Speaking of kissing Ventus. He seems happy enough now. The hollowness that rang within Vanitas before feels far enough away that tugging Ventus into his lap is the easiest thing in the world. Ventus makes a confused noise, but it melts away to a contented hum as Vanitas’s free hand drifts to the small of his back.

“How long do we have before they show up?” Vanitas asks, prompting Ventus to pull out his phone and check.

“About an hour and a half.” Ventus taps his phone a few times before tilting it so Vanitas can see a timer, set for the appropriate time and already counting down. He offers Vanitas a coy grin as he tosses it onto the bed, letting the thing be swallowed up by his rumpled sheets.

“And they’re bringing the food, right?” It’s getting harder to focus on words and not the sensation of Ventus’s warm hands tracing along the curve of his biceps. His eyes have always lingered whenever Vanitas wore tank tops; of course his hands would linger with that same preoccupation. Ventus is a big fan of muscles; Vanitas has known this for years.

One of those hands moves to run through Vanitas’s hair and he shivers.

“Aqua is so excited to cook again. You don’t even know,” Ventus says.

Saying _Yeah, I don’t really care_ would definitely ruin the mood and make Ventus smack him, so Vanitas puts his mouth to a better use instead. He tilts his head up for a kiss and. Well.

It gets a little bit nicer every time.

Terra and Aqua show up almost exactly an hour and a half later, each carrying a reusable shopping bag filled to the brim with food. Noticing the multiple shoes stacked neatly by the door, Aqua slips her own shoes off and sets them at the bottom of the rack. Terra is quick to follow her lead.

The dogs come out and cautiously sniff at their bags. Smiling, Aqua leans down and scratches Void’s head. “Wow Vanitas,” she says, straightening up and taking in the space around her, “Your apartment is really nice.”

Instantly he feels himself going on the defensive. “What, did you think I live in a garbage can?”

Aqua freezes. “No, not at all! It’s just…”

“You should see some of the rowers’ apartments. I think I’d actually go to rowing parties if they were half as clean as yours,” Terra finishes on her behalf.

“Exactly,” Aqua says. “This is probably the nicest college apartment I’ve been in.”

Vanitas rolls his eyes. Naminé’s is nicer, but whatever. It’s easier to focus on the brief rub Ventus gives his shoulder before he goes to join his friends. He takes a bag from Terra and immediately roots through its contents.

Their agreement was simple. Ventus wanted them all to eat together again, Aqua wanted to cook something, and Vanitas would let her and Terra use his kitchen in exchange for not having to buy extra groceries and not having to help cook.

He doesn’t even like cooking. He just does it to survive.

Ventus, satisfied with his complete lack of manners, sets the pilfered bag on the kitchen counter. Aqua glances at Vanitas, clearly hesitating to step any further into his apartment. He gives her a hesitant nod, which she rightly takes as permission to step into the kitchen and begin unloading ingredients all over his space.

“What exactly are you ruining my kitchen for?” Vanitas asks, resting his elbows on the opposite side of the counter from her. He gave them a list of the few things he won’t eat and preferred not to think about the rest. He doesn’t feel like playing a guessing game for the next hour.

“Several things! Spaghetti carbonara, a cucumber and watermelon salad, homemade garlic bread, and,” Aqua pauses for dramatic effort, her hand coming to rest on a box just inside the other bag, “brownies!”

She holds up a box of double chocolate brownie mix. Then she grabs a separate bag of chocolate chips - the fancy kind, too - and holds that up. Vanitas’s mouth waters at the sight.

Ventus laughs at whatever dumb face Vanitas must be making, so he’s quick to correct himself with a scowl. He doesn’t move fast enough to stop Aqua from getting the most awful smile she’s ever seen on her face. “Yeah, Ven said you’d be happy about that.”

“I wanted pecan cookies,” Terra says blandly. “But the brownies won out.”

“Good. Pecans suck,” Vanitas says.

Terra doesn’t get offended. For some reason, Vanitas has to fight down the urge to scrounge up an insult that _will_ get him to react.

Once everything is set out and Vanitas tells them to use whatever pots and pans they want, the three get to work. There’s a brief moment where Ventus and Terra stare at each other, each trying to figure out what to work on as Aqua starts boiling the water for the pasta. Terra roots through the kitchen drawers and eventually pulls out a knife. He holds it up slowly.

After all this time, his hands still shake.

Slowly, he turns the blade in his grasp and hands the hilt to Ventus. With an understanding look, Ventus accepts it and scoots past him to grab the small watermelon that sits on the counter. Terra pops open the box of brownie mix, Ventus grabs a large bowl for him, and Terra pours the brown powder in. Some of it must get in his nose, because he has to turn away to sneeze moments later.

“Bless you,” Aqua says, not even looking at him as she moves effortlessly from task to task. She drifts about Vanitas’s appliances like she belongs there. Terra and Ventus are much less graceful, though Ventus constantly peppers them with (mostly correct) instructions on where to find whatever measuring cup or cookie sheet they need for the next step.

The three of them move so easily around each other. A triangle in perfect alignment.

It makes Vanitas uneasy, like he’s an outsider in his own space. He has absolutely no reason to be defensive, not when their last dinner together just a few days ago was _fine_ , but now that he’s recognized the feeling, he can’t stop it.

He curls his hands in and out of fists below the kitchen counter where none of them can see and focuses on his breathing. He tries to count to ten, but he only gets to four before Ventus is at his side. Startled, Vanitas jerks away from him.

Seeing the crease between Ventus’s brow feels like a knife to the chest. His worry settles into a soft understanding. “I got you something,” Ventus says, grabbing one of his fists. He opens Vanitas’s closed fingers with such gentle care and deposits a small handful of chocolate chips there. “Go sit down if you’re not feeling well,” he says, dropping his voice to a whisper. “We have it covered, don’t worry.”

As much as Vanitas wants to feel warm over how Ventus noticed his discomfort, his reasoning is completely wrong. Fair, given how Vanitas was just two hours earlier, but wrong.

But Vanitas mutters a small, “Thanks,” anyways and pops the chocolate into his mouth, letting the sweet taste flood his senses. Grinning, Ventus returns to the opposite side of the counter and gets back to slicing cucumbers. He’s awful at it, something Aqua is quick to try (and fail) to correct him on.

It takes about an hour for everything to finish. Vanitas nearly blanches when he sees Aqua crack raw eggs into a bowl and only half-cook them by dumping them on hot pasta. It’s a legitimate dish, apparently.

He still doesn’t feel much better than before, but Ventus returning to him to give him a couple chocolate chips at a time is grounding, the tide’s constant ebb and flow in the form of a boy.

When they sit at the table, each at a legitimate chair of their own, the tense atmosphere that only Vanitas must feel lessens. It’s still weird to let Terra and Aqua into his own space. The change is a growing pain that leaves him feeling uneasy, but he takes a deep breath and tries to let it happen.

They’re a little more equal here. There’s not even a kitchen counter to separate them.

“Thank you for letting us do this, Vanitas,” Aqua says, taking a scoop of pasta for herself. “We couldn’t have done it without your kitchen.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Vanitas says. Somehow, that makes him feel a little better. He didn’t want to help anyways, but he kind of did. It wasn’t the way that these three did, but does that matter?

He takes a bite of the pasta. It’s fantastic. The salad is, too.

When Gear and Void start lurking around underneath the table for scraps, Vanitas clicks his tongue and gets them to go away, then clicks his tongue at the two seniors and makes sure that they don’t feed them anything they shouldn’t eat.

Does it matter, that he’ll never be part of that triangle?

Ventus makes a joke about how weird the brownies look and that’s enough to get all four of them to laugh. Even Vanitas chuckles a little.

No, it doesn’t matter. He can get along with them, and that’s what does matter.

And maybe that’s okay.

 

* * *

 

iv.

Vanitas and Xion trail along the perimeter of the stone outcropping, ten foot high walls filled with graves blocking their way in. A small creek bisects the grassy pathway behind them, preventing them from walking to the back of the area.

Vanitas takes one look at it and hops over the gap, landing easily on the other side. Xion looks more unsure, but she follows after him without much trouble. The walls are shorter back here as the small hill they find themselves on swells over the small labyrinth within. Vanitas spots another opening, hidden from the prying eyes of any other visitors or staff.

Vanitas clambers over a ledge, weaves through the caution tape that pathetically tries to bar their movements, and enters the tiny maze of memoriam. Xion follows close behind.

Before they can start their search, Vanitas’s phone starts to buzz in his pocket. Xion shoots him a curious look as he digs it out and accepts the call. He can’t even get out a greeting before Ventus speaks. “ _Hi. Can I come over? I’ve reviewed this same lecture four times and if I have to spend one more minute reading over slides I think my head will explode._ ”

Xion gives Vanitas a knowing look as a stupid smile worms its way over his face. He really is a sap and all his friends know it. Ugh. “As much as I’d love that, I’m not home right now.”

“ _When will you be back? I can grab us some take-out so we can eat lunch together. They’re serving chicken curry at Rendez today. I think you’ll like it._ ”

“I’m not in the city, Ventus.”

His line goes terrifyingly silent. When does finally does speak, his voice is small and worried. “ _...What? Why?”_

“I’m in Riverside.”

“ _Riverside? Why would you ever go… oh._ ” Ventus exhales sharply, static ringing into Vanitas’s ear at the sound. “ _Vanitas. If you went there alone, I swear-_ ”

“-I’m not alone. I’m with Xion.”

His sigh this time is tinged with relief. “ _Thank goodness. I wish you would have told me first. I had no idea you were even gone._ ”

Vanitas tries to swallow his guilt. “Sorry. I knew you were busy today. Didn’t want to bother you.”

“ _It’s okay._ ” And this time, it actually is. “ _You didn’t go alone. That’s what matters to me. Tell Xion I said hi, okay?”_

Vanitas pulls his phone away from his ear, though he doesn’t bother to mute his end of the call. “Ventus says hi,” he says to Xion.

She smiles. “Hi, Ven!” she shouts, easily loud enough for Ventus to hear. Judging by the laugh coming from his phone, he heard it without a problem.

Vanitas brings the phone back to his ear. “I’ll be back later today. Come over tonight, yeah?”

“ _Stay the night come over, or kick me out at eleven pm come over?”_

Vanitas grins, fireworks blooming in his chest. It’s hard to fight his sappiness when the entire reason why he’s such a sap is speaking to him with summer warmth in his voice. “Kick you out the next morning so you’ll go study for your midterm come over. Deal?”

“ _Deal. See you then._ ”

Vanitas glances over at Xion, suddenly embarrassed. He takes a few steps away and mutters something nearly unintelligible into his phone, completing the last part of the routine they’ve settled into whenever they call. Texting works too, but Vanitas knows Ventus likes to hear his voice. The inconvenience is worth it every single time.

Satisfied, Ventus ends the call and Vanitas slips his phone back into his pocket. He rejoins Xion’s side as she gives him a teasing grin. “I’m surprised you two didn’t already have plans tonight,” she says, giggling to herself.

Scowling, he gives her a shove that isn’t even hard enough to knock her off-balance. All it does is make her laugh harder. By some stroke of luck, it also makes her change the topic, if only slightly. “You two have known each other for a long time, right?”

“We met when we were six.”

“That’s cute.”

“I broke his arm that day.”

“That’s… not cute.” Xion flashes him a concerned look.

“That’s how I feel. He was my first friend. My first _anything_ , really.” His first _everything_ , too. “I never expected him to forgive me, but he did. I swore to myself I’d never hurt him again after that. It’s not always perfect. Far from it. But even if we weren’t, you know, _us_ , he’d still have my loyalty for the rest of my life.”

The baggage from their shared past is mostly sorted out by now, those painful memories strewn open and their contents packed away into their proper places. Ventus has gotten better at learning not to cling, just as Vanitas has gotten better at learning not to disappear. There’s no need to chase after each other. Not anymore.

Vanitas left for the day, but he’ll be back. He has somewhere that wants him back, after all.

“...You have my loyalty too, Xion,” Vanitas adds. “You deserve it. Need me to beat someone up for you? I’ll do it.”

“I think I can beat up people myself, thanks,” Xion says dryly. Her words have gotten more bite lately; Vanitas thinks it’s a side-effect from sharing a room with Roxas.

It makes him laugh. It isn’t a bad thing at all.

He used to think that he would never have a family. That bastard gave him a place to live, but family is more than the blood ties that threatened to choke the life out of him.

No, the people who have chosen to stay by his side - those people are his family. He has no guarantee that they’ll stay. There’s no contract signed in blood that keeps them by his side.

But he has faith, and that is enough.


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're getting SO CLOSE to the end now. can you believe that? i can't believe that.

iii.

“That was so good! Roxas, why didn’t you tell me about them earlier?” Kairi says, skipping in front of Roxas as they finally head towards the exit of the concert venue they just spent the past three hours baking in. For all Roxas spent the drive over lamenting over how he’s a sell-out for spending forty bucks on a concert ticket, he’s on top of the world now. He hugs the vinyl record in his arms close to his chest like it’s a stuffed animal and not a square of plastic and pretentiousness.

“Because you only listen to pop, Kairi,” Roxas says dryly as they emerge out of the venue. By the time they got through the merch line, the crowd had thinned out to an amount of people that didn’t make Vanitas want to punch someone. Still, the accumulated body heat from the crowd lingered in the hallway, so stepping out into the night air is more refreshing than Vanitas would have thought. Kairi stretches her arms over her head and sighs in delight, the light breeze momentarily whipping her hair off her neck.

“I’d listen to your bands if you ever gave me recommendations,” Kairi says, rolling her eyes but laughing all the same.

“Fine. I’ll text you some tomorrow.”

Kairi claps her hands together, utterly delighted. “Great!” Still beaming, she directs that smile towards Vanitas. He regards her warily, certain that she’s up to no good. “Do you want food, Vanitas? I’m starving.”

He’s adopted Roxas’s tradition of the post-concert meal, so it’s not like she has to convince him to agree. “Yeah. Got a place in mind?”

Kairi hums and exchanges a look with Roxas, who shrugs. She hums a little louder and walks out to the edge of the pavement, looking up and down the street for any buildings with their lights still on. Given that they’re in the middle of Hollywood, she has several options to choose from.

Sunset Boulevard is beautiful at night, the street wide and well-lit under bright street lamps. The road stretches and curves throughout the city, dancing past some of the city’s biggest landmarks. While the stretch between Beverly Hills and Westwood is full of patches of bright green fields and quiet contemplation, this part is full of vibrant life.

The smell of grilled meat and smoke fills the air. Kairi’s eyes land on one of the vendors just a few feet away, cooking bacon-wrapped hotdogs and an array of colorful vegetables on a small grill. She seems to consider the benefits of street dogs for a few moments, but soon turns away and keeps looking. Something about a block away catches her eye and she points towards it. “Oh, oh! There’s a Roscoe’s here!”

“A what?” Roxas and Vanitas ask in unison.

She gives them both a scathing look, like they had insulted her mother. “You’ve never been to _Roscoe’s?”_

“If we had, would we be asking?” Vanitas counters, sneering at her. Kairi scrunches up her nose and attempts her best sneer back, but the gesture is quickly broken as she starts to laugh.

“That’s it, we’re going! Come on!” she says, already heading off towards the direction of the restaurant. She walks with speedy purpose, leaving Roxas to jog after her.

Vanitas stays at the same pace even as he lags behind them, because he isn’t a loser.

Roscoe’s is apparently a place specializing in chicken and waffles. Vanitas has heard of the dish before, but why would someone ever put fried chicken on top of a waffle? How do they go together? And with maple syrup? Sounds gross.

He relays this information to Kairi after they’re seated, who predictably takes it with all the offense he expected her to. Roxas snickers, the traitor. “Salty and sweet,” Roxas says. “I think I’ll really like it.”

“Like sea-salt ice cream, right?” Kairi asks. They’ve both seen the bars of blue ice cream plastered all over his Snapchat whenever he’s with Xion and Axel. Vanitas has been meaning to try it, but he hasn’t gotten around to it.

Roxas’s eyes glitter like the twilight sun glinting off the hood of a silver car. He’s nearly bright enough to blind with the force of his joy. “Yeah! Exactly like that!”

Kairi giggles. “Then you have to order some!”

“I will!” Roxas replies, scanning the menu to figure out what piece of chicken he wants on top of his waffle.

Vanitas looks down at the menu in front of him. There are plenty of normal things he could order. He weighs the pros and cons in his mind.

 _Pro_ : Normal food.

 _Con_ : Kairi’s wrath.

Resigning himself to his fate, he settles on ordering the chicken and waffles as well. Once the server comes by, he ends up picking the same item as Roxas: two thighs on top of a waffle. Kairi orders a leg on top of her waffle and a pink lemonade, shining with triumph as the server repeats their orders back to them.

“You’re gonna love it. Promise,” Kairi says as the server leaves.

“You owe me thirteen bucks if I don’t,” Vanitas says. Both of the freshmen laugh. “I’m not joking!”

“Sure you aren’t,” Kairi giggles, rolling her eyes. “You’re a big softie on the inside. You can’t fool me!”

“I’ll kill you.”

“No you won’t. You would kill someone who tried to kill me, though. Don’t you think so, Roxas?”

Roxas nods, because he’s still a traitor and also awful. Vanitas debates about leaving them both here and going home without them. They have phones. They can easily call an Uber.

But he stays where he is, though he gives them the best scowl he can manage. Having nothing else to do, he settles for pulling out his phone and sending a Snapchat of the two sitting across from him to Xion.

_They’re ganging up on me. Told you you should have come._

Xion sends him a reply seconds later - a selfie of her with fake tears drawn dripping down her face as she frowns at her phone. In the background is a shock of bright red hair. Definitely Axel. He’s probably doing something idiotic. _I wish I was there! That’d be way more fun than writing this paper._

He sends her back a black screen with a giant thumbs-up emoji in the center. _Good luck._

Vanitas slides his phone back into his pocket and looks up at the sound of singing. Kairi softly sings one of the songs from the concert, remembering a surprisingly large amount of the chorus given that she’s only heard it once. Her voice is strong on its own, able to carry a tune when she actually knows it. Roxas perks up at the sound and joins along in a low harmony, hitting every note flawlessly.

Kairi doesn’t remember the next verse and drops out of the song, but she snaps along to the beat as Roxas takes over. He’s just as good as Vanitas remembers. He doesn’t join in himself, but he listens quietly, letting the music wash over him. There aren’t many patrons in the restaurant at eleven at night, but the ones who are around clap for him when he finishes.

Roxas turns a bright shade of red and sinks down into his flannel. He turns redder as Kairi squeals and throws her arms around him. “Oh my god, you’ve only gotten better! Please write a song!”

“I’ve worked on a few… sometimes…” Roxas mutters, looking away.

Vanitas thinks back to the conversation he overheard Roxas have with Ventus on the night of Naminé’s birthday dinner. He still doesn’t seem any happier about his major now than he did then. Changing majors as a freshman is ridiculously easy. All he would really have to do is sign a piece of paper and talk to some advisor and he’d be done.

Vanitas wouldn’t have it that easy. Like hell he knows what to do with a Chemistry degree, but he’s not complaining. It’s fine. He’ll figure something out.

“Have you thought about switching to music?” Kairi asks. “I bet you’d be so good at it!”

Roxas sighs heavily and explains to her the same exact thing he had explained to Ventus before. “My parents want me to go to law school. They’d kill me if I changed out of poli sci.”

That fucking sucks. Kairi, however, takes the information a different way. “If your mom is anything like Sora’s, then I could see that,” she says with a small laugh. Gritting his teeth, Roxas nods. Kairi continues speaking. “What if you joined an a capella group? You’d get in without a problem!”

Vanitas has been to a couple a capella performances over the years, mostly tucked away at the bottom of parking lots on Sunday nights. He could see Roxas among the group, standing in whatever dumb costume the theme for the performance warrants and knocking out a powerful solo. “You should do it,” Vanitas adds.

At least Roxas seems to consider this idea. “They’re all really competitive, but it _does_ sound fun. I’ve always wanted to try arranging music, too.”

“Yeah! Next year, next year!” Kairi cheers.

“What about you, Kairi? What do you want to do?”

Kairi hums, tilting her head back and forth as she thinks. “I want to enjoy the time I have now. I can’t really join any clubs because of volleyball. My coaches _say_ school is important, but I was recruited here for sports, not for my grades. I’m an athlete first, and a student second.”

“Damn,” Vanitas says. “Don’t you think that’s fucked up? What about when you graduate?”

Kairi shrugs. “In a lot of other sports, it’s easier to dream about going pro. It’s not the same with women’s volleyball. There’s no dedicated pro league and it’s not like I’m good enough to make it to the Olympics. Once I graduate, my volleyball career is basically over. Which sucks, because I don’t know what else I love to do besides volleyball. And eating, of course!” She stops talking long enough to smile at the server as they set a pink and yellow drink down in front of her. She stirs it with her straw, letting the colors blend together, ice clinking additional music notes against the glass. “I could graduate in three years if I really wanted, but why would I? I’ll never get this time back. Why not spend it doing what I love with the people I love around me? I’ll figure out what else I can do before I go. I have time.”

For all the time Vanitas has spent with Kairi, she continues to surprise him. It’s like each time she’s around, Vanitas discovers something new about her. For as annoying and pushy as she can be, there’s a thoughtfulness to her that’s rare to find. She doesn’t struggle or doubt the way Roxas does. She has her shit figured out already.

She turns to Roxas and points at him. “Which is why I think you should join an a capella group! You love music, Roxas. You know you do, even if you can’t change your major. If you love something that much, why not chase after it with everything you’ve got?”

Roxas blinks at her, dazed. “When you put it that way… yeah. I think I should.”

Kairi giggles. “Sometimes boys are so goofy, I swear. This is why I never go to any of you for advice.”

Vanitas loves them both, too - this the boy who embodies the fading twilight sky and this strange, unpredictable girl.

Their food comes. Kairi dumps her entire saucer of maple syrup all over her chicken and the waffle underneath it. Roxas cuts off little strips of each and gently dips it into his saucer. Taking a gamble, Vanitas copies Kairi’s movements.

She’s right. The food is delicious. Salty and sweet.

 

* * *

 

iv.

“His grave is here?” Xion asks, looking around. The graves, stacked in the walls like they’re in a morgue, tower over her, though not too high as to prevent her from reading the names and dates that line the walls. Some are decades old, the metal and stone rusted from age. Every grave has a little funnel shaped structure that hangs by it. Little flags hang from some; flowers hang from others. Some have brief inscriptions below the names and dates, usually expressing the same platitudes that he’s come to expect at gravesites.

He doesn’t know if Eraqus included a platitude on the bastard’s grave. He hopes not.

“Pretty sure, yeah,” Vanitas replies, scanning the graves all around them for that too-familiar name. Even thinking of the bastard’s name makes him think of those ancient spiders that used to crawl across his skin, their spindly legs like ice picks digging into his flesh. “This is where the… god, what do you call the person who officiates a funeral? That person. Said it would be.”

He thinks.

“There should be some kind of pattern to how these are arranged. Usually it’s the date of death,” Xion explains, drifting away towards a brighter part of the maze. She skirts around an emaciated tree that sticks out of a dirt patch in the concrete. The branches are no taller than she is. “We need to go to the newer graves.”

They make their way towards the front, tracing names and lineages lost to Vanitas. He wonders how often these graves are visited. Who is left to come by? Aren’t graveyards meant for the living, not the dead? What’s the point of making one if there’s no one to pay their respects?

“I never actually thought I’d come here again,” Vanitas says, scanning past another row of names and dates. “Still not sure if this will be nothing but a waste of gas and both our afternoons.”

“I don’t think it will be,” Xion hums, ever the optimist towards anyone who isn’t herself. “I have hope you’ll get something good out of this.”

“Wish I could say the same.”

They enter another part of the maze. They’re in the mid-2010’s, now, close enough to the actual date of his death that they have to carefully scan over each name. A thought bubbles in the back of Vanitas’s mind, an admission more than it is an observation. There’s no one but Xion around, so he feels safe enough to say it.

“You know, I spent so long wishing he would just die already. It felt like the only way I’d ever be free of him was if he finally croaked.”

Xion hums, prompting him to continue speaking. The words scrape against his throat as they leave, growing closer and closer to a secret that he’s never allowed to escape himself. The kind of secret that would make someone undeserving of love, even the kind of free-flowing acceptance Xion has offered him from the start.

He’s never even told Ventus. He doesn’t think he ever will. This, he’s too close to certain to ever want to tell him, is the kind of thing that would keep Ventus from ever looking at him the same way again. Ventus has never seen him as a monster, and yet…

And yet.

Vanitas shakes his head, clearing away those heavy thoughts clouding over his sun-bright boy. “Then the bastard did die, right when I was finally ready to tear him a new asshole for all the shit he put me through. Felt like one last kick in the balls.”

Or really, one last order to throw himself onto that threadbare carpet once again for fucking up something he was too young to know how to do correctly. Bruises no longer bloom along his sides the way he used to, but he still remembers the feeling.

“It’s hard, not to take it personally,” Xion says quietly. “It doesn’t make much sense to get angry at someone for dying, but it happens anyways.”

“I had always been angry at him, though. Even when I was a kid.”

“Do you think you ever loved him?” Xion asks, glancing at him. “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t. I don’t think anyone would.”

Vanitas has to stop and consider the question. Did he? “When I was _really_ young and didn’t know any better? ...Yeah. I think I did. I don’t know if he treated me better when I was really young or if I just didn’t know better, but I don’t remember it being so bad at first. That shit ended around middle school. Maybe I could have forgiven the bastard if he ever showed an ounce of genuine remorse, but could I have loved him? Never.”

It feels almost like that bastard took that from Vanitas, too. That chance for reconciliation.

“That makes sense,” Xion says. “Someone who denied you love for all your life doesn’t deserve your love. Besides, you have better people now, right?”

He looks to her and grins. “Yeah. I do.”

They fall into a comfortable silence as they continue to look around. It takes forty-five minutes of searching before Xion voices the doubt clinging to both of their minds. “Vanitas, I don’t think his grave is here.”

He must have misremembered the location of the grave. “Figures I’d fuck it up.” Old man probably expected this of Vanitas. Whatever.

“But you’ve never actually been to his grave, right? How could you fuck up going somewhere that you’ve never been before?”

“Fair.” Damn Xion and her _logic_. “What are we supposed to do now?”

Xion stands on her tiptoes and looks around, but what she’s searching for, Vanitas has no clue. After a few moments, she starts towards the pile of caution tape they originally emerged from. “Let’s go back to the entrance. The visitor’s center should be able to help us.”

Honestly, they should have gone there in the first place. With a sigh, Vanitas nods. They clamber over the caution tape, circle back around to the front of the structure, and follow the road back towards the lone building on the property.

 

* * *

 

i.

When Ventus sees him the next morning, he clings to Vanitas like he’s the last thing tethering Vanitas to the earth. Every ragged breath sobbed into his shoulder feels like a stab wound. His mom works her way into the hug, stroking Vanitas’s hair like he is something precious.

He squirms out of her grasp, but he’s too desperate for a real bed to squirm out of the hotel room she gets him for the weekend. It isn’t great by her standards, but the water is always hot and the breakfast is complimentary and Void’s allowed to stay in the room, so he has nothing to complain about.

They try so hard to convince Vanitas to come back with them. He refuses, time and time again.

They spend that first day running errands, some of which Vanitas had no idea he even had to do. Ventus’s mom drags him to the closest bank to open an account. She uses her address back in Rancho Cucamonga as his permanent address, which raises an eyebrow from the teller.

“Wouldn’t you want to open an account closer to home?” the teller asks, eyeing them warily.

To her credit, Ventus’s mom doesn’t even flinch. Ventus does, shooting Vanitas with an anxious look. Before Vanitas can scramble for a lie, Ventus’s mom pins the teller in place with a sugary smile.

“Oh, you know how it is! My precious boys go to college here, and students are always moving from place to place! It would be simpler to send mail back to our house. Fewer change of address forms. You understand.”

Vanitas tempers his expression so he doesn’t show his shock. He didn’t realize she was such a good liar, damn. Ventus isn’t even half as good as she is.

The teller accepts her lie without hesitation. An hour later, Vanitas has a temporary debit card, a checking account, and a sum of money within it that makes him want to throw up from how little he deserves it. He tried to convince her not to do it. The minimum was twenty-five bucks, which he could have easily covered.

“If I cannot give you a warm home, then at least I will give you enough to have a warm bed for the night. And if anyone ever needs you to list an address - for a job, mail, for anything at all - you put ours down.” She’s a tiny woman, smaller than both Ventus and himself, but there’s nothing but power in her as she rests her hands on Vanitas’s shoulders and looks him dead in the eye. “Do you hear me, _cucciolo?_ _You put ours down._ ”

“I hear you,” Vanitas manages not to stammer, ducking out of her grasp as soon he thinks he can without her pulling him back in. This is too much.

If he was less of a coward, he would have fought back harder. He would have refused their money. Their other son just had a _baby_ , and Ventus is about to sign his life off to whatever amazing school he’s bound to get into. They aren’t rich; far from it. They can’t take Vanitas on as well. They’re not his family. They have no obligation to him.

( _And even if he said yes, he would still have a timer hanging over his head. They wouldn’t let him stay once Ventus left for college, provided they didn’t kick him out before that. Were anything to change, he would be the first on the cutting block. He couldn’t bear to hear them say no. It’s easier not to ask at all. At least that way, he’s assured of the answer._ )

He has to figure it out on his own. He has no other choice, not when the other option means burdening them. He can use what they gave him for now, but no more. All he needs is enough time to track down and beg a few well-off couples in the area to let him clean their house for them. He’s good at cleaning; it wouldn’t be difficult once he gets his foot in the door.

Besides, cleaning someone’s house means that he should be able to bring Void with him. He can’t leave her alone.

Really, if there’s anything Vanitas _should_ do, it’s convince Ventus’s mom to take Void in. She deserves a home, a place with an actual bed that isn’t the backseat of a car. She deserves a yard to play in, not sand that constantly gets stuck under her claws.

But Vanitas is lonely, and he is selfish. He can’t give her up, even when he knows he should.

He just can’t.

Ventus’s mom drags him to a few other places. Ventus takes Void to a dog park to play while Vanitas waits in line at the DMV with Ventus’s mom for _hours_. By some work of magic and some amazing lies, she’s able to update his car’s registration for the year _and_ get it under his name.

It makes him want to throw up once again. There are so many kids here in his same situation. So many people without a place to call their own. Yet here he is, a kid with someone to finally hold his hand and walk him back towards that unsteady path leading towards adulthood. They don’t get this luxury.

It isn’t fucking fair. Not at all.

He won’t let her take him by the youth shelter, but they do go to a few other places. She gets a six month membership for him at the YMCA so he doesn’t have to worry about showering. She shows him the food banks she found online. The cheapest laundromat according to Yelp. Anything she can, to make his life a little easier.

He lays in that cushy hotel bed that night, reviewing the whirlwind of a day in his mind and trying hard not to be consumed alive by his own guilt. Void sleeps at his side, curled up in comfort and finally at peace. He doesn’t pet her, but only because he doesn’t want to wake her up. He wishes he could, though. He could use the comfort himself.

A knock sounds on the door that connects his room to Ventus’s. At first, it’s gunfire to Vanitas’s frazzled nerves, but he’s able to calm his racing heart when he remembers who stays on the other side of that door. He flips the lock and throws the door open, revealing Ventus’s worried face.

“Hey,” Ventus whispers, scratching the back of his neck nervously, “Did I wake you up?”

“No,” Vanitas whispers back. “What is it?”

“Can I come in?”

Vanitas steps aside and closes the door behind him, figuring that Ventus’s mom must be asleep. Ventus sinks down onto the fluffy comforter as Vanitas flicks on a lamp, illuminating the room in a gentle glow.

“Why did you come all the way here?” Ventus asks once Vanitas sits down next to him. “You could have gone anywhere.”

“I wanted to see the ocean,” Vanitas says. “The weather isn’t too bad for March, either. Makes it easier to sleep at night.”

Ventus kicks his feet against the carpet. “I guess.”

“You still want me to come back, don’t you.”

Ventus won’t meet his eyes. “Of course I do. What about finishing high school? And graduation? You promised you’d be my walking partner.”

God, he wishes he could go back to caring about things as trivial as getting to be Ventus’s walking partner.

“Plans change, Ventus.”

“Then what’s your plan now? What about college, Vanitas? You can’t go to college if you never even graduate high school.”

He knows what Ventus is trying to do, however clumsy his execution may be. He just wants Vanitas to _think about his future_ or whatever. Too bad it’s tough shit. How can he think about the future when it’s hard enough to get through the present?

“Ventus, I was barely able to afford breakfast from the dollar menu at McDonald’s. What makes you think I could afford _college_ like this?” Vanitas snaps.

Ventus is quick to back down. Vanitas is silently thankful for it. He can’t handle an argument right now. “You’re right. Sorry. I’m just worried, I guess. I really wanted us to go to college together. It’s dumb, I know.”

Vanitas applied to Ventus’s top choice solely because he had a fee waiver and didn’t have to pay to apply. But with his shitty grades, it was never a realistic option. Just a pipe dream indulged in to make Ventus happy.

Ventus sighs, resting his face in his hands. “This is awful,” he mutters.

Vanitas snorts. “You think?”

“If you really won’t come back, then…” he trails off, though he steals a glance at Vanitas. “I don’t think I can visit you every weekend, but I’ll try to come whenever I can, okay?”

“Okay.” This is too much. Vanitas feels overwhelmed by a surge of emotions he can’t make sense of. “I’m tired, Ventus. Head back to your room.”

Ventus’s hands fist in the comforter. “And you’ll be here in the morning?”

“Where else would I go?”

“I don’t know. Away.”

“That’s stupid.”

He’d be lying if he hadn’t already debated it, though. The biggest reason why he hasn’t checked out and given Ventus’s mom the refund is because he’s sick of making his dog sleep in his car.

Ventus still hasn’t left, but today has been so _much_ and he finally feels ready to pass out for the night. He goes to the other side of the bed and gets under the covers, careful not to jostle his sleeping dog too much. “I’m going to _sleep_ , Ventus. It’s late. Go back already.”

Something occurs to Ventus in that moment, resolve straightening his spine and making him fix Vanitas in place with a fierce look. “You know what? My mom will make fun of me in the morning, but whatever. I’m staying with you.”

Vanitas feels like he’s been punched. “What?”

“You heard me! I’m staying here. If I can share a queen bed with my mom, I can easily fit in one with you and your dog.”

“Why?”

For a while, Ventus is quiet. It’s another punch to his chest, squeezing out every last bit of air in his lungs, when he hears Ventus finally say, “So I’ll know when you leave.”

Vanitas almost does leave in that moment so he can go walk into the ocean and drown himself in his own guilt. That wouldn’t solve anything, so he settles for biting out a, “Fine.”

Ventus crawls under the covers. Not close enough to touch, but with him on one side and Void on the other, Vanitas has no way to get out.

There are no wildflowers when Ventus rolls over to face him, eyes sharp in a defiant dare to leave. He doesn’t remember the wildflowers all that well from his time in that desert hell, but he remembers how brief their lives are. The blooms never last for long.

But he can almost hear the roar of the tides in the pacing of Ventus’s breath, and he welcomes it more easily.

Somehow, it lulls him to sleep.


	31. Chapter 31

iii.

A knock sounds against Vanitas’s front door and he starts so badly that he nearly topples off the couch. His lazy dogs are both napping on the floor, bellies full from dinner and probably pleasantly tired from the especially long walk he took them on earlier. He thought the outdoor air would help calm his nerves, but all it did was remind him that in a few hours Ventus will be staying the night.

Normally, Vanitas would be thrilled. The timing is nearly perfect, since this is the last Saturday before finals. With their earliest finals on Tuesday, they can afford to whittle away this night together.

Except Ventus will definitely want to _cuddle,_  in Vanitas’s bed, and he all he can think about are the broken shards of himself he stabbed into Ventus the last time they gave in to that particular urge.

Things continue to be more different than he thought they would be, now that they’re dating.

Having (unintentionally) made Ventus wait long enough, Vanitas opens the door. Ventus rolls his eyes and breezes past him once he does, kicking his shoes off by the door without a care. He grips a white take-out bag in one hand and a cup in the other. “Thanks for making me wait long enough to make my hot chocolate cold,” he says, taking a sip of said drink.

Okay, so they’re going for fake arguments. Vanitas can do that. “Shut up. You were outside for two minutes, tops.”

“That’s a long time when you were clearly _just_ sitting on the couch,” Ventus says, casting a pointed glance to the armrest where Vanitas’s phone and water bottle both lay abandoned.

“Besides, every take out place in the dorms makes those drinks molten,” Vanitas adds, touching the outside of the cup to prove his point. Sure enough, the material under his fingers is still hot to the touch. “That’s what I thought.”

Ventus snickers as he sets his bag and drink down on the dining table. He pulls out a clear container and sets it on top of the empty bag. A delicate chocolate tart sits inside - the same one Vanitas spent a solid minute staring longingly at when he and Ventus got lunch at that particular take-out restaurant earlier in the week. “I got this for you,” Ventus explains, rooting around in the bag once more only to place a disposable (and compostable, apparently) fork next to the food. “I figured you’d want to try it.”

Vanitas finds himself caught between two very intense desires: inhale that tart in one breath, or sweep his boyfriend up in a kiss. Ventus is definitely hiding a cheeky smile behind his drink as he takes another sip. Ocean eyes glitter at him as he sets his drink down and the choice is suddenly very, very obvious.

Vanitas closes the few feet of distance much faster than he thought was possible and pulls Ventus towards him. He can’t even get frustrated at the self-satisfied smirk that curls across Ventus’s lips, not when a pair of arms are wrapping around his neck. That smirk only grows as Vanitas shivers under his touch, electricity crackling down his spine.

When Ventus kisses him, he tastes like chocolate. Something tells Vanitas that all the obnoxious sipping was _entirely_ intentional.

Two can play at that game. Vanitas hasn’t ever tried this particular stunt before, but he has enough evidence to suspect that it’ll work out for him. He wraps his arms around Ventus’s waist and lifts him right up off the ground. Ventus breaks the kiss with a surprised yelp that almost immediately gives way to delighted laughter.

Wait. Actually…

Vanitas shifts until his hands brace the underside of Ventus’s thighs, giving him a more stable grip. Ventus, by some stroke of luck, takes a hint that Vanitas didn’t realize he gave and wraps his legs around his waist. Vanitas lets some thought about Ventus clinging to him like a koala drift through his mind. He has to tilt his head up to look at Ventus, only to see him staring back with summer heat in his wide eyes and a beautifully red face.

Every thought immediately ejects itself from Vanitas’s mind at the sight.

Ventus kisses him fiercely enough to make Vanitas’s head spin. When he pulls away, he brushes their noses together, speaking his next words against Vanitas’s lips. “This- this is good.” Another kiss, magnetic in the way he slots their mouths together. “Can you pick me up more often?” he asks, breathless.

“Yeah.” This is a terrible time for talking. It’s a much better time for more kissing.

At some point Ventus flicks his tongue into Vanitas’s mouth, which is really weird until it becomes really incredible. Vanitas finally understands what it means to _melt_ under someone’s touch.

By the time Vanitas’s arms get tired enough to put Ventus down, his hot chocolate has definitely gone cold. They heat it up in the microwave, but it isn’t the same. Ventus doesn’t seem particularly heartbroken.

The tart is as good as it looks, though.

They relocate to the couch eventually, neither of them tired enough to really make any noise about trying to go to sleep quite yet. The pleasantly hazy memory of Ventus pressed against him, smiling against his skin and trailing his lips along his jawline keeps his fear at bay, but not for long. Those touches are all new and exciting, so completely different from what he’s experienced before that there’s no baggage to weigh them down.

Tonight should be _fine_ , they’re taking things much slower than any sane person in their position would for a _reason_ , and yet…

Yet he’s still scared.

Biting back a sigh, Vanitas waits for Ventus’s story about his weird brunch with Kairi and the two boys she completely and utterly adores to end before changing the subject. He feels stupid for even wanting to bring this up, but if he didn’t he’s pretty sure Minnie would materialize in his room and chide him in her disappointed voice until he wanted to crawl under a rock and never come back out.

“I think the three of them are dorming again next year, so this will probably happen again,” Ventus finishes, aimlessly tracing circles on Vanitas’s shins. Vanitas kicked his feet into Ventus’s lap pretty early on, and after a failed attempt to tickle Vanitas’s foot that only earned him a kick in the shoulder for his efforts, Ventus has settled for rubbing his legs for no reason.

It’s nice. Vanitas doesn’t want him to stop.

Vanitas takes a deep breath. “Ventus.”

Something in his tone must worry Ventus, judging by the way Ventus’s hands still. “...Yeah?”

“I’m,” he pauses, taking another deep breath and squeezing his eyes shut. He’ll make this as quick as possible, like ripping a band-aid off.

( _He used to cover himself in band-aids as a child, his rudimentary knowledge of first-aid extending to band-aids, antibiotic ointment slathered on the small square of fabric, and absolutely nothing else._

_God, what a terrible time to think about this._ )

“I’m. Worried. About tonight,” he gets out, each word halting in his throat. “After what happened last time.”

Ventus’s face hardens. Not out of anger or frustration, but something else, settling in the lines of his face. At least there’s no confusion to be found there - he knows exactly what Vanitas is talking about. “You’re worried about sharing your bed? Because we just made out for, jeez, I don’t even know how long, and I thought you liked that as much as I did,” he says.

“I liked it,” Vanitas says quietly, feeling his face go hot. “But the bed is different. Bad memories there.”

For a few moments, they’re both quiet, reviewing the night they shared months ago. Vanitas remembers the numbness, the sheer desperate pain, the way he tried to trace over Ventus because there was nothing else he could hold onto.

How he almost lost Ventus to that void.

He’s finally started to approach what happened with Ventus immediately after the bastard’s death with Minnie. She’s still supportive, still believes in Vanitas to a level that remains terrifying, but her validation now curls itself around her careful, if occasionally painful, analysis.

Working out these issues fucking sucks, but it’s necessary. They have to examine what happened and _why_ Vanitas did it. The last thing he’d ever want would be to subject Ventus to that bullshit again. He doesn’t want to be codependent. He just wants to _be_.

“I don’t really know anything about… psychology, I guess? Does this count as psychology?” Ventus pauses, shaking his head to probably clear his mind of thoughts of what does and doesn’t constitute psychology. Because it doesn’t matter. “Do you think it’d help to build positive memories there? I’m pretty sure that we’re both relatively okay right now, so I think we’d be able to spoon without a problem. Maybe it’d even help.”

Vanitas can’t look at him anymore. It sounds so embarrassing when he puts it that way. Spooning. _God_.

He feels his face grow hot again, embarrassment prompting him to draw into himself like a turtle hiding inside its shell.

Ventus wants to hold him close, that much is obvious, and Vanitas wants him to. Vanitas has never wanted a roommate, but he’s certain that not even waking up to the gentle sound of the waves on the beach and to the morning sunlight streaming into his eyes could compare to waking up to this boy. Not when they both want each other, want this future together.

Vanitas goes to speak, but no words come out.

Something else, something a little sadder, fits over Ventus like a cloak. He wraps his arms around his knees and pulls them close to his chest. He looks so small, so fragile.

Vanitas is suddenly very deeply, intensely terrified. His throat closes. All he can do is stare at Ventus, bewildered, like an animal caught in a trap.

Ventus speaks into his knees. “I think it’s more than just that, Vanitas. I think you’re okay with kissing because you don’t have to think about anything when we do. I’m pretty sure that the only thing you think about is how to get better at it,” he says, chuckling under his breath. It’s quick to arrive and even quicker to leave. “I think you’re afraid of how much I love you.”

The air in Vanitas’s lungs is sucked out all at once. He can’t breathe. All he can do is listen and look, terrified.

He knows that Ventus loves him - how could he not, after everything they’ve been through? Still, that knowledge does nothing to quell the power that speaking those words aloud brings.

Ventus does not grow more resigned; he grows defiant, leveling Vanitas with a fierce look. Daring Vanitas to deny him. “I know you know I do, even before I just said it! You’re too smart not to. I want you, and I love you, and I’m _in_ love with you. And that’s scary to you, because it makes it easier for you to hurt me. I can’t tell you that you’ve never hurt me. You have. And yeah, it hurt me more because I love you.”

Vanitas goes to apologize, but his mouth is full of ashes. _He_ is full of ashes, drowning in an ocean of gray cinders, burning him as he sinks below the depths ( _because he is everything the old man ever said he was, a monster_ -)

“-But you always act like everything is your fault and that you’re the worst person to walk the world, when you’re not! You never have been! You’ve hurt me, but you know what? I’ve hurt you, too! That’s what people _do,_ sometimes! I’m sorry for that, and all I can promise is that I’ll never hurt you on purpose. What happened to me last quarter wasn’t your fault, so can you stop blaming yourself? Please.” Slowly, Ventus reaches out and grabs his hand once more. His touch burns, but his words burn more, whispered as they are. “Don’t push me away. Not anymore.”

Vanitas can’t even try to fight the pressure in his eyes before he starts crying. Ventus starts beside him, panic clouding over his sunlight. It’s so much, too much. His light burns.

“Wait, wait, I didn’t mean to make you cry! Oh my god, I’ve never even seen you cry before. I’m sorry! Not sorry for telling you I love you, but I went too far, didn’t I? Oh, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Ventus babbles desperately, hovering just a few inches from him.

Vanitas hates crying. He hates the pressure behind his eyes, the snot dripping from his nose, the hot tears that roll down his cheeks, his shuddering gasps, and the stupid sounds he makes when he sobs. It’s shameful. If the old man were to see him now, he would have forced Vanitas through rounds of judo techniques whose names Vanitas has purposefully forgotten until he was too numb to cry. Crying is weakness, he would have said. It serves no point. Nothing more than a waste of energy.

That man is dead, but his ghost lingers still.

They stand in opposition: the father who should have loved him but never did, and the boy who never should have loved him but did, and does.

Vanitas so badly wants that boy to win.

He can’t say it out loud, not to Ventus, but he loves him too. So much that it’s terrifying. He wants to be loved, and… and he is, isn’t he. By so many people, and in so many ways.

Ventus can’t help him with his numbness. The only thing that can is time, the seconds that tick by as breath flows in and out of his chest and his heart returns to him from whatever prison it found itself in.

Vanitas isn’t numb now, is he? He’s not alone, either. He’s sad, and he’s scared of the overwhelming feelings washing over him from the boy at his side, but that is a far cry from numbness. Ventus can’t heal the patchwork damage to his heart, but if Ventus wants, he can wipe away Vanitas’s tears, and he can hold him close.

And he can help him brave this sadness until his joy returns, triumphant and shining.

Vanitas takes a deep, watery gasp of a breath. “Will you,” his voice catches in a sob, and he knows how stupid he sounds right now, “Will you come closer?”

Ventus practically tackles him with how quickly he wraps himself around Vanitas, pulling him close and resting his face in the crook of his neck. He rests his head on top of Vanitas’s and hums some soft, short melody as his hands rub reassuring circles onto his back. His voice, cradled in this wordless song, is so sweet.

This love is terrifying; he doesn’t know how to accept it. He doesn’t know how to let it happen. He mostly knows how to accept the love of his friends, how to let the simple joy they offer take him along for the ride.

He’s craved Ventus’s love for so long, craved it like he craves the sunlight. He’s had it for so long, hasn’t he? Maybe he’s always had it.

He trembles as his arms wrap around Ventus in turn. Until every tear is spent, he cries. It feels so different just to let them come. To not dam up this feeling.

When his eyes are finally dry and the last of his sobs fade in his chest, he kisses Ventus as sweetly as he can manage. “Thanks,” he whispers, and it doesn’t feel like ash on his tongue.

Ventus doesn’t say that he’s welcome. Of course he wouldn’t. “I love you so much,” he whispers back. He traces a finger along the angles of Vanitas’s face, his touch softer than silk. His other hand combs through Vanitas's hair. “I want to be with you, Vanitas. For as long as you’ll let me stay.”

He’ll let that be forever, if he can. There’s never been anyone else he’s wanted in the way he wants Ventus. There could probably never _be_ anyone else.

There doesn’t need to be.

“Let’s go to bed,” Vanitas says, giving Ventus a kiss that makes him hum before finally pulling away. He rolls his neck, the muscles stiff from not moving for so long.

“Together?” There’s so much fragile hope there.

“Together.”

They get ready for bed, mostly separate, but in a companionable silence. Vanitas leaves the bathroom door open as he grabs his toothbrush and brushes his teeth for the night, which Ventus takes as an invitation to join. He takes his own toothbrush out of the holder he’s stuck to the mirror and grabs for Vanitas’s toothpaste like it's his own.

Their reflections look back at them - the two of them, together, both clad in pajamas and brushing their teeth with cheap plastic toothbrushes. Vanitas’s eyes are still puffy, gold rimmed by red, but he doesn’t shy away from the image. Not when Ventus refuses to shy away.

The dogs are both asleep in their beds by now. Vanitas tugs over their beds just a little bit - Void likes to pad in a circle three times before laying down, and the last thing he wants is for her bed to be so close to the edge that she falls off when she tries. He wants her to be comfortable, but he also wants Ventus to have a little more room. Especially if this is going to become a regular thing.

Vanitas lays down first, keeping the edge of his blankets folded over so Ventus can join him with ease. He slides in effortlessly, arms sliding around Vanitas’s waist like they’ve always belonged there. Maybe they have.

At least, they do now. That’s what matters.

Vanitas’s heart beats a frantic staccato in his chest, but he’s careful to keep his breathing calm. Ventus is warm against him, slotting against him so nicely as his sun-bright boy takes a chance and tangles their legs together. His fingers dance under the back of Vanitas’s shirt, his calloused hands warm against his skin.

Ventus presses his lips to Vanitas’s forehead. “This okay?”

Vanitas takes a deep breath. “Yeah.” It isn’t a lie. Despite the tightness in his throat, he adds, “More than okay. Good. Great.” _What I’ve always wanted._

He still isn’t sure how to let himself be loved.

So he simply trusts, and he tries.

It’s one of the hardest things he’s ever done. Accepting this love.

Still, he tries.

( _In the morning, when Ventus’s eyelashes flutter open and sleepy ocean eyes look at him with unfiltered adoration, Vanitas hopes that the day when he can give his own love words is one just on the horizon._ )

 

* * *

 

i.

It takes seven parking tickets, several dozen Craigslist ads advertising himself as a “professional” house cleaner, two terrifying interactions with the cops that leave him shaking for hours afterwards, three weeks’ worth of motel stays spread out across groups of one or two nights, an untold number of apartments and houses worth more money than he can fathom scrubbed clean while on his hands and knees, and six months, for Vanitas to scrounge up enough money and luck to find a place to stay.

It’s a tiny place. Tinier than he thought it could be. Just big enough for a twin mattress, a desk, a chair, two plastic bins he picked up from Target stacked on top of one another, and Void’s dog bed. The dirt cheap rent is a _godsend_ , but it comes at the cost of not having his own kitchen or bathroom. That’s what happens when you live in a converted shed in some old man’s backyard, he supposes.

He has a key to get into the house proper. He’s allowed in whenever, but he’s not allowed to make a lot of noise after nine at night. Annoying, but a small price to pay.

The old man he rents from keeps to himself. Vanitas wishes that his (great… nephew? Tenuously related small relative?) _child_ took after him in that regard. Vanitas tries to time his excursions in the kitchen to when Russell isn’t around so he won’t get pelted with forty questions, each more annoying than the last. It doesn’t always work.

Still, it’s a comfortable arrangement. Figuring out how to act around a landlord isn’t hard. He keeps his distance, pays his rent on time, and doesn’t make a mess of the kitchen when he uses it. Simple. Straightforward. Business-like.

Then Carl gets the boy a dog and the old man quickly realizes just how much work a puppy is. Too much work for an eight-year-old to handle on his own.

“This dog won’t stop chewing up my shoes!” Carl complains one morning after the kid's already off at school, glaring at the golden retriever puppy that keeps trotting towards his slippers. “Go on, dog! Get!”

The dog does not go on and get anything other than the slipper. He flops down right in front of Carl’s feet, gnawing on the slipper like he isn’t about to give his owner an aneurysm. “I’d send you to the pound if you weren’t so good at tiring Russell out!”

Rolling his eyes, Vanitas sets his bowl of cereal down on the kitchen counter and scans the area for a toy. He snatches up an ugly green snake and clicks his tongue loudly enough to startle the dog. “No,” he says, snatching the slipper out of its mouth and holding his hand in front of it so it can’t chase after him. He tosses it the snake. After a few moments of confusion, the dog settles back down to gnaw on the toy instead.

Carl looks at him, utterly lost. “How’d you get him to stop?”

“My dog chewed on everything as a puppy. They do that. The key is to get them to chew on their own shi-stuff, not yours,” Vanitas explains.

Carl drags his hands down his face and groans. “I’m too old for this…” he glances at Vanitas, something registering in his mind that Vanitas can only guess at. “Would you be able to help Russell train the damn thing? Your dog is well-behaved. I’ll make it worth your while.”

“And that means…?”

“I’ll lower your rent in exchange.”

That gets Vanitas’s attention. “By how much?”

“One-hundred less a month.”

Vanitas nearly chokes on his tongue. He has a couple people whose houses he cleans twice a month, but every other job comes sporadically. He’s only lived here for a month and a half, but budgeting is more difficult than he expected it to be.

With that extra money, he could afford more than just cereal and instant ramen for his meals. He’s spent months eyeing the chocolate covered almonds that someone sells at the Santa Monica farmers market. He could finally treat himself to a bag of the things. God, he could even take Ventus out to dinner the next time he comes to visit in exchange for all the times Ventus has bought him meals.

( _Ventus never fails to ask how he’s doing financially. Vanitas never gives him a straight answer. His family has helped him out enough. They have better things to focus on, like the exorbitant cost of Ventus’s education. He’s starting school next month, after all._ )

“I’ll do it,” Vanitas says.

He spends the rest of his afternoon at the library, using the public computers to check for any updates on his most recent Craigslist post (which still hasn’t gotten an offer, dammit) and reading up about dog training techniques. Void’s settled down for the most part, but he stumbled through most of her adolescence with no idea as to how to train her. The fact that she came out fine is nothing short of a miracle.

But there’s money at stake with this newest task. Vanitas needs all the preparation he can get.

On the walk back to Carl’s house, Vanitas’s phone starts to buzz in his pocket. His phone is still just as dumb as his last one, but he traded out his old two-dollars-a-day plan for one that only costs him five bucks a month. The phone can’t do anything other than text and call, but that’s fine. Smartphones are overrated, anyways.

All he needs is a way to contact the people who pay him and the only boy who wants to speak to him.

He answers the call. “Yeah?”

Ventus’s laugh just isn’t the same through a shitty phone connection. “ _What’s with that voice? Come on. Did you forget about my call?”_

“Shut up, Ventus.”

_“That’s not an answer._ ”

“Use your brain for two seconds, Ventus. Think about who else would ever call me. Do you really think I’d talk to someone who was paying me money that way?”

Ventus laughs again. “ _Okay, okay you win._ ”

“I do win.”

“ _Don’t worry. I’ll get you next time I see you._ ”

Vanitas snorts. “When is that going to be, anyways?” he asks, taking a left instead of the right that would lead back to Carl’s place. Third Street Promenade is a massive stretch of street, full of shopping centers, tourists, and street performers desperate to make a buck or two line the walkways. It’s a major tourist trap, especially during sunny mid-August days like today, but Vanitas could use the exercise. Besides, Russell won’t be home from whatever he does until evening, so Vanitas won’t need to start training the kid and his dog until then. He has time to talk.

“ _Next week! I’m coming for Orientation, actually. Terra and Aqua are, too! We’ll be there for three days. I think I’ll be pretty busy, but at night I should be free. We can all hang out!”_ Ventus sounds so excited.

Vanitas’s heart stutters pathetically at the thought of seeing Ventus, able to overwhelm his complete apathy at the thought of seeing the others. He’s intensely grateful for the crowds of people, all too self-absorbed to notice one kid grinning like an idiot with his phone pressed to his ear. “You’re not going to fall asleep on me, are you?”

“ _After not seeing you for a whole month? Like I ever would!”_

“Good.”

They talk for what must be a solid hour, the entirety of which Vanitas spends aimlessly walking along the Promenade. The babbling fountains are just loud enough to cut through the current of voices as tourists walk, pleasant and comfortable. The sun is warm on his back and though the waves are too far away to hear, just the knowledge that they’re a few blocks away is a comfort.

When Ventus is called away for dinner, he ends his call the same way he always does: “ _Okay, I really have to go. See you soon, Vanitas._ ”

He’s stopped saying goodbye. It’s always a _see you soon_ , always looking towards the future. Ventus has so much to look forward to - starting college at his dream school, getting to spend every day with his closest friends, finally getting to stretch out in the sunlight on his own terms, and so much more. He has a career to work towards, off in the distant horizon.

There’s no goal for Vanitas to work towards anymore. The only goal he ever had was to get out of the bastard’s bungalow, and as fucked up as the path he was forced to take was, it happened. He doesn’t have a career to think about. He doesn’t have dreams of a school to graduate from. Hell, he doesn’t even have a high school diploma. On top of that, whatever precarious balance he once had with Ventus is gone. The electricity remains whenever they’re together, crackling over Vanitas’s skin and silently begging for him to come closer, but things aren’t the same as they were in high school. There’s a gap between them, one that he doesn’t know how to bridge.

Hell, he doesn’t even know how it came to be.

Vanitas wants to look towards the future, too. He just doesn’t know if he can.

 

* * *

  

iv.

As it turns out, Vanitas is completely fucking wrong about the location of the bastard’s grave. It’s still close to the shelter where they held the funeral, but he was looking on the wrong side of the road. The bastard isn’t found in any kind of standing maze.

Nope. He’s just another plot in the ground. Without even a tombstone to mark his place, but a plaque that Vanitas could step all over if he isn’t being careful.

Xion, proving time and time again why she’s Vanitas’s best friend, holds onto the bouquet of shitty lilies as Vanitas deciphers the map they got from the visitor’s center. Technology is amazing; a small computer printed out a map of the precise location of the bastard’s grave for him. Small markers in the ground line the sides of every road, subdividing the cemetery into plots of land that are easier to track.

The actual location of the bastard’s grave is just past the shelter, tucked away between blades of tall grass. Vanitas plucks a funnel-shaped holder out of a small bin by the road to hold the flowers in.

“Figures I wouldn’t know about the bastard’s grave,” Vanitas says, walking through the rows of graves to scan for that familiar name once more. “I barely knew anything about him in the first place.”

“I understand that,” Xion says. “There’s so much I’ll never know about my mom. I can always ask my dad, but there are parts of her life that even he isn’t sure of. It’s like all those stories are just… lost.”

“He told me plenty of stories. Tried not to listen most of the time, but it never mattered if I wanted to listen or not. What I’m curious about is how many of them were complete bullshit.”

He could probably ask Eraqus. If anyone would know, it’d be him. It has potential to be an interesting idea, save for the whole _talking to Eraqus_ part. More than an explanation for why the bastard did what he did, Vanitas wants a way to scream out his frustrations. He still feels robbed of the confrontation he never got to have.

It would have been so nice, to look the old man in his molten eyes and shatter his iron will into fucking scrap metal.

He finds the grave, tucked in amongst rows of countless others. All that’s left to memorialize him is a stone square set into the dirt. A name, a date of birth, and a date of death. There are no platitudes here to honor him by.

Good.

“Is this it?” Xion asks, noticing that Vanitas has stopped moving.

“Yeah.”

“How do you feel?” She comes to a stop at his side, looking down at the bastard’s grave with him. He takes the lilies from her, shoves them in the little canister, and digs the plastic into the soft ground right below his tombstone. Freed from the plastic wrap that kept them in place, they hang over the edge without a care, ready to spill themselves over the ground the moment a slight breeze starts up.

Vanitas barks out a laugh. How perfect.

“Vanitas?” Xion asks again. He doesn’t like the edge of worry that’s crept into her voice.

“I’m fine,” he says. It isn’t a lie. “I don’t feel any different than I did two minutes ago. I really thought this would be more climactic.”

He isn’t numb, either. He’s not hollowed out by that void that still pricks holes into his mind on the bad days. Its shores are not any wider than they were before he decided to come here.

He just _is_.

“Huh.” He crouches down, wrapping his arms over his knees for balance. Xion crouches beside him, waiting to see what he’ll do next. He spots a tiny bit of dirt on the corner of the old man’s tombstone. Vanitas drags his finger through it, smearing brown tracks on as much of the grave as he can. Take _that_ , old man.

...Maybe he’s a little angrier than normal, but thinking of the bastard usually makes him angry. That’s not any different from how he’s felt for the past decade.

“Huh?” Xion repeats softly, giving him a subtle prompt to continue. He could easily back out if he wanted.

“I don’t know. I just. Hoped it would help me, or something.”

“Maybe it still can. You can still talk. If you want me to leave so you can, I will.”

Vanitas shakes his head “No, stay. No point in giving a eulogy if there’s no one to hear it.”

He takes a deep breath, carefully gathering the thoughts that have haunted him throughout his life. He lays them all down in front of him.

He sits down, uncaring of the grass stains he’s certain he’ll get from this. The bastard doesn’t deserve the effort it’ll take to stand. Xion slowly sinks down at his side, waiting for him to begin.

So he does.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> greetings from me, who really wants some ice cream. 
> 
> i feel like ive looked at parts of this chapter so much that when sending it to my betas i had to keep rereading it because i got confused on what i did and didn't already put. gosh!!! but i think the end result is good, so hopefully you enjoy it too! 
> 
> eggslut is indeed a real place and i have thought about it since i last went there 4 years ago

i.

“I knew you could do it,” Ventus says softly. He leans over Vanitas’s shoulder, hands gripping the wooden back of the chair Vanitas sits in as they both look at the screen displayed on Ventus’s computer.

Clear as day, the screen happily declares the results that Vanitas spent a solid three days avoiding. He passed the GED. Or California High School Equivalency Exam, whatever. It’s the same thing.

He may be a high school dropout, but this certificate is just as good as a diploma.

He honestly wasn’t certain if he would pass. He pirated a prep book off Starbucks wifi a few weeks before the test, but he’s pretty certain the copy he used was older than he is. It didn’t have any practice tests, just a series of explanations on how to do geometry and some vocabulary to memorize. Other than that, all he did was watch a view videos on Youtube, take a deep breath, and suffer through a few hours of testing.

He probably wouldn’t have taken it, if not for the confirmation Ventus had pressed into his hand the week before he left for Christmas break and refused to take back. He’s pretty certain Ventus paid for it with his own money, every dollar hard-earned from the part time job he’s picked up at the local Papa John’s.

Some things never change. One of those things is Ventus’s apparently eternal status as a pizza boy.

Another thing is the residual guilt that gnaws at him whenever Ventus spends large sums of money on him for no reason. He’s gotten used to the birthday gifts. He’ll suffer through a Christmas present, especially when he has one planned in the wings as well.

Anything more is unbearable.

“It should be easier for you to get a job now. Aren’t you tired of cleaning bathrooms off Craigslist?” Ventus asks.

Yeah, he is pretty tired of cleaning bathrooms. It worked out in his favor when he lived in his car and couldn’t leave Void by herself, but she’s safe and asleep in his room now. He can afford to work longer hours. He couldn’t last a week in customer service or retail without punching an idiot customer in the face, but something other than the constant smell of bleach and toilet cleaner would be nice. So would having leftover money at the end of the month.

Ventus seems to get an idea and excitedly taps Vanitas’s shoulder. “Hey, what if you applied to community college?”

“Lay off, Ventus. I can’t pay for it.”

“I could help you.”

Vanitas is on his feet in an instant, heart in his throat and threatening to choke him. He can’t let Ventus do that. Not when he’s done so much for him already. “Don’t you fucking _dare_ , Ventus! You think a part-time job can pay for that? Do you even think of yourself? What about the student loans I know you took so your parents wouldn’t have to pay extra? God!”

Ventus glares back at him. “You know financial aid exists, right? You could apply! It’d cover most of it, and I’d help you pay the difference!”

“And what, call up the bastard who left me to fucking die so I can get his tax returns?” He can feel his throat closing, rage constricting around him like a python. He can’t talk to that man. Not after what he did. He can sign his own permission slips now, sure, but as far as the government’s wallet is concerned he’s still a dependent. There’s no way to change that.

He wishes the bastard would hurry up and die already. Six months left to live? What a joke.

Vanitas has been here for almost a year. His nineteenth birthday is just a month away and sometimes he feels like more of a kid than ever before.

The fire in Ventus’s eyes dies. He really is like the ocean tides, pulling away from him constantly. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be.” This isn’t fair to Ventus, he knows. But he’s full of anger and there’s nowhere else he can direct it. There aren’t walls he can punch here. There aren’t trash cans he can kick over, not when he’s seen too many people just as scrappy as him get hauled off for smaller bullshit.

The door clicks, causing the both of them to freeze. The dorms use keycards instead of typical keys, making them feel even more like fancy hotel rooms than they do permanent living spaces. Ventus’s roommate appears in their sight as the heavy wooden door swings open. He looks ready to disappear inside his own sweater.

“H-hey Ven,” he stammers, edging over to his desk and snatching up the textbook there. “Hey Vanitas.”

“Hi Hiro,” Ventus says, picking up on the residual embarrassment in the room. He must have heard them fighting from outside, didn’t he? Vanitas really needs to get a grip.

“Don’t mind me, I just gotta…” he trails off as he shoves the textbook into his backpack. “Yeah. See you guys later?”

“No,” Vanitas says. “I’m about to leave.” He really shouldn’t be here any longer.

“Okay… uh, see you tomorrow, probably,” Hiro says, letting the door swing shut behind him. Before he’s out of earshot, he mutters, “You’re basically our third roommate, at this point…”

Ventus turns red, clearly embarrassed, but neither of them can really fight it. What does Hiro think their relationship is, anyways? How did Ventus explain it to him? Did he even say anything, or did he let Vanitas show up one day without any explanation?

It doesn’t really matter right now, not when Ventus moves away from him and sinks down onto his bed. “Are you really going?”

“Probably. I… shouldn’t have gotten mad at you,” Vanitas admits, his anger finally draining out of him. Rage is easy. Apologizing is almost impossible.

Still, he tries. If only for Ventus’s sake.

“Sorry,” Vanitas finishes, feeling like a moron.

“It’s okay.” It isn’t. “You don’t have to leave yet. We can still get dinner together.”

Ventus does too much for him, but he lets himself accept this one thing. He has to use those swipes anyways. They’re included with his housing. It’s fine. “...Yeah. Okay.”

Ventus keeps a solid three feet of distance between them for the rest of the night, reminding Vanitas of how far-away those small moments they used to share at the end of high school now are. He’s not certain of Ventus’s feelings anymore, if they’ve cooled down to simple friendship, but Vanitas is all too aware of his own. He doesn’t know what he would do without Ventus.

He wants more than this. So much more.

( _Mostly, he wants a place to call home. A converted shed is nothing but a temporary stop he hopes to get out of one day. All it takes is for Carl’s whims to change, for him the need the shed for extra storage space, for Vanitas to be living out of his car once more. Even then, he’s lucky enough to have what he does; he’d be an idiot to hope for more._ )

He goes back to Santa Monica with a full stomach and enough patience to make it through a session of training Russell and his annoying dog on how to walk with a proper harness. Russell babbles endlessly about anything and everything like he usually does the entire walk, though he keeps coming back to the friend at school who might get a dog for her birthday.

“Oh wow, do you think you can train her dog, too? You’re so good at it. You’d train the best dog,” the kid says.

Vanitas rolls his eyes. “If they pay me enough, sure.”

He gets a call the next week from an unfamiliar number, only to find himself helping another child deal with the overactive puppy she just got. In one session, they pay him more than he’d get during an entire week of cleaning.

Vanitas discovers something over those next few months, as one trained dog turns to two, then three, then more.

He’s pretty good at training dogs. He’s better at it than cleaning houses, at least.

It takes months for the ratio to tip. Between the word-of-mouth he gets from owners with Pomeranians that no longer piss on their fancy carpet and the people by the beach who stop to talk to him after recognizing himself and Void for so long, he builds up something approaching a client base.

Some of the dogs are awful. Many of the owners are worse. Somehow, he learns how to deal with them, day by day and month by month. It’s worth it for the massive tips some of them will give for no good reason.

Time and time again, Vanitas returns to Ventus’s words. School wasn’t awful. Vanitas wouldn’t mind going back provided it wouldn’t bury him in debt. Getting to graduate with Ventus would practically be impossible at this point, even if Vanitas could somehow finish early after transferring.

But it’s something to do, he supposes.

( _And it’s strange, when he finally steps onto the community college’s campus as a student several months later. The backpack slung onto his shoulders and heavy with textbooks feels right. He wouldn’t call this hope, but it’s closer than he’s had in a while._ )

  


* * *

 

iii.

What better way to spend Wednesday of finals week than by going to Downtown and looking at some pretentious modern art with Vanitas’s boyfriend (his _boyfriend_ , god, he still isn’t used to that), his best friend, and the only weird art student he’s willing to put up with?

Vanitas could be studying, but he correctly predicted that his brain would be too fried from his final that morning to be productive. With Naminé done for the quarter, Xion having one final paper due on Friday, and Ventus and Vanitas both having their last final late tomorrow afternoon, they might as well be irresponsible for a little while.

Besides, Ventus’s final is for a G.E. Some bullshit multiple choice final on geography that’ll take him forty-five minutes to finish. Vanitas only feels a little guilty for dragging him out here, the feeling mostly mitigated by the fact that Ventus wouldn’t have spent this time studying anyways.

_It’ll be okay_ , he reminds himself, shifting his grip on his steering wheel as he pulls off the freeway and onto the confusing network of one-way streets that line Downtown LA.

For the most part, Vanitas tunes out the conversation Ventus has with the girls in the backseat. He doesn’t particularly feel the need to chime in, content to remain in his own thoughts. That is, until Ventus says something so unbelievably awful that he has to speak up. “You know, I always thought the first double date I’d go on with Vanitas would be with Terra and Aqua.”

There’s a lot to unpack in that one sentence, but Vanitas goes for the absolute worst part. “Do you really have to call it that? A double date? Gross.”

“Let’s see,” Ventus says, his voice as dry as that desert hell, “You and I are dating. We’re going with two of our friends, who also happen to be dating, to go do something that we normally don’t do. If we went with, I don’t know, Roxas, it’d just be hanging out.”

“It’s still just hanging out,” Vanitas defends.

“We can hang out _and_ be on a double date,” Naminé says. “They’re not mutually exclusive. Either way, I’m excited. I think we’ll have a lot of fun.”

“We will!” Xion adds.

“Don’t take his side!” Vanitas snaps, though there’s no heat in his voice. He’s careful to keep it out. He’s not actually mad, after all. Just vaguely annoyed.

“I would have taken your side if your point was good,” Naminé says, killing him instantly. He thinks about pushing her out and making her walk the rest of the way, but Xion and Ventus would both kill him if he did. He’s not ready to meet his end that way.

( _Besides, he knows with certainty that he’d never do that to her. He loves her too much._ )

Knowing that this is a fight he’s doomed to lose, Vanitas gives in. “Yeah, yeah. The name’s still dumb, though.” Ventus snickers at him, but the girls don’t. Not this time, at least.

They may not snicker, but they do start to giggle when Ventus thinks it’s a good idea to open his big mouth again. “Love you,” he says softly, warmly, warmer than even the daylight that streams in from his windows. As much as Vanitas doesn’t want to be _that_ sappy couple, Ventus is doggedly determined to fluster him at every opportunity he gets.

He still can’t say it back, especially not in his fucking car on a Wednesday afternoon, but what he can do is grope around for Ventus’s hand once he pulls into a parking lot a few blocks from the museum. He finds Ventus’s hand and gives it a rough squeeze before pulling away so he can swing into a parking spot.

“Vanitas, are you alright? Your face is pretty red,” Naminé says. He doesn’t need to look at her to know that there’s a serene smile on her face - her version of a shit-eating grin. What an evil girl.

“I hate you.”

“I don’t think you do.”

“Get out of my car.”

He turns the engine off and throws his door open. He’s out of the car before any of the others, though Naminé is at his side within moments. Her smile is gone, replaced with something pensive. “Vanitas?” she asks quietly. “I’m sorry. Did I go too far?”

He has to think about it. Did she?

“Nah.”

Her shoulders slump in relief. “Thank goodness. I know my teasing can go too far, but I try really hard not to be malicious. I never want to actually hurt you.”

“I can’t even imagine you malicious,” Vanitas admits. It isn’t an emotion that this shadow of a girl looks like she could ever wear. He’s well acquainted with it. It’s too sharp, too pointed of an emotion to ever belong on her. She’s too calm, too composed, to act out of her anger the way he falls into so easily.

“I’ve done it before. Too many times before. I still get angry now, all the time. I think my anger just looks different than yours.”

“I could see that.” Though he had never thought of that before now. He’s so used to anger looking a certain way: explosive and angry, or like an icy knife silently slid between his ribs. But anger is more complex than that, just as full of nuance as joy or sorrow or anything else

Naminé is a good friend. There’s still so much he doesn’t know about her, but he has time to learn more.

The others all look to Vanitas for direction, unsure of how to even get out of this parking lot. Vanitas snorts and heads for the exit, leaving the others to trail after him. They emerge into sunlight so bright that it nearly blinds Vanitas. Naminé takes a pair of sunglasses out of her bag and slips them onto her face, while Xion and Vanitas both cover their eyes with a hand. Only Ventus, as bright as he is, is unaffected.

They head up a steep hill, concrete sloping beneath their feet and cars honking at each other as they zoom by. Naminé has the stamina of a baby bunny, but Vanitas sticks close to her side. That apparently comforts Xion enough to let her drift towards Ventus’s side. They chat easily ahead of Vanitas, but they’re a little too far away for him to make out the details of their conversation. Vanitas is almost certain that neither of them have any idea which way to go, but it’s fine. He’ll tell them when to turn eventually.

“Naminé,” Vanitas says, prompting her to turn towards him. He can barely see the outline of her eyes from behind her sunglasses, wide with curiosity.

“Yes?”

Vanitas shoves his hands in his pockets. If he kicks at the sidewalk a little as they walk, Naminé is kind enough not to mention it. “...What you said earlier. You do that sometimes.”

“Do what?” Oh god, she sounds worried. He’s not trying to call her out if that’s what she’s thinking. Of course not.

Vanitas quickly backtracks. “You say shit that makes me realize how little I know about you.” He wants to ask, to try to figure out the pieces of her background that have led her to drop such somberly cryptic statements with ease, but at the same time, he doesn’t want to open himself up to the same examination. Talking about his past is shitty.

Maybe she feels the same.

“You don’t have to tell me anything. Only if you want to. I’m listening,” he finishes quickly, looking down at his feet as they walk. Naminé’s responding giggle isn’t threatening, but gentle.

“I don’t mind. It’s a long story, is all.”

Vanitas gestures in front of them, where there’s nothing but a steady upward slope of concrete. The museum is still hidden from view; they’re not quite close enough to see it yet. “We have some time,” he says.

Naminé hums. “You’re right. I don’t mind sharing a little. I’ve mentioned that I was homeschooled until high school, right?” At Vanitas’s nod, she continues. “I didn’t go to public school like Roxas did. I went to a Catholic all-girl’s school because my parents thought it would give me a better education than the public schools. I’m not sure how true that is, but at least that was their reasoning. I met Kairi there, pretty early on in my first year.”

“And you became friends,” Vanitas finishes for her.

Naminé nods. “She’s hard not to befriend, especially once she’s set her sights on you.” Vanitas snorts, amused. Kairi wormed her way into becoming his friend more than he tried to befriend her. Hell, he wanted nothing to do with her. “I was really quiet and shy, and even less able to handle big groups that I can now. A lot of the other girls didn’t reach out to me, but Kairi always did. She really liked my art.”

“Yeah, because it’s good and she has eyes.”

Naminé beams at the compliment, though she tries to hide her smile behind her hand. Vanitas still sees it, though - her attempt is pretty weak. “Um, thank you. Anyways, I don’t want to go into much detail about what happened next, but there was a girl. I had never gotten a crush before, but getting a crush on a _girl_ in a school like the one I went to was difficult. Really difficult. She liked me back… maybe. She felt enough of something to kiss me, at least.”

Vanitas winces, already having an idea of where this is going.

True to her word, Naminé doesn’t go into much detail. He doesn’t know how she damns it all up so easily. Would he be able to stop talking once he started? He definitely can’t in therapy, that's for sure. “It was a very small school. Rumors traveled fast and when people found out about us, she blamed me. I was hurt, and scared, and so, so angry. I said and did a lot of things I’m not proud of. The… the drama, I guess? It lasted a few years. By the end of it, only Kairi would talk to me. And the girl who started it all - I think I really hurt her.”

She doesn’t talk with any sort of emotion. At this point, it seems like it’s nothing more than a story. He’s glad that it doesn’t seem to hurt her any longer.

Naminé looks down at her hands. “College was a new start for me. A second chance. Somewhere that I could finally be myself, where I didn’t have to tear others down just to protect myself. Sure, I still get upset. I still get angry at others. But I won’t let that malice rule me. Not anymore.”

Vanitas looks at her, stunned and intensely grateful that he gets to be her friend. She's a shadow of a girl, yeah, but there's still a level of substance there. She still casts a shape along the ground. “You’re strong,” he says. “I respect that.”

Naminé smiles softly, something teasing in the curve of her mouth. “I can’t carry a large bag of rice from the store without getting exhausted. I’d hardly call that strong.”

“There’s more than one type of strength.”

Naminé’s smile grows a little more sincere. “...I think you would know, wouldn’t you?”

Flustered, Vanitas avoids her eyes and her smile. He mutters something under his breath, but it isn’t quiet enough to keep her from laughing softly. He really does respect her.

She knows it, too.

They cross a small street and finally end up in front of the museum and together once more. Even from behind her sunglasses, Naminé’s eyes practically sparkle as she stares up at the white expanse in front of them. Xion’s caught between admiring her girlfriend and admiring the strange exterior of the building.

Vanitas isn’t a fan.

The Broad is shaped like a weird square, covered in an expanse of white honeycomb-like divots running across the entire surface. Almost like someone laid a net of concrete mesh over the entire place. It hands over the entrance, two spotless glass doors beckoning them inside. They bypass the large line - standby, he’s pretty certain - and head inside. Since Vanitas is the one who ordered their tickets, he’s the one who is forced to check the four of them in. Thankfully, the process is about as painless as it can get.

They head up the stairs from the lobby and into a world of white walls and evocative art. Naminé immediately pulls a small sketchbook and pencil out of her bag, flipping it to a blank page and getting ready to draw.

The inside is interesting; he isn’t sure what he expected. Xion darts underneath a table and a single chair that stands fifteen feet high, hiding behind one of the legs and peeking her head out from behind it with a giggle. Ventus is quick to join her with his dumb jokes about Jack and the Beanstalk or whatever that fairytale is called.

Naminé hangs back and Vanitas lingers at her side, subtly glancing over her shoulder to watch the rough sketch she makes of the two of them. She draws quickly, her lines messy and free along the page, but the way she adds shading tells him that her source of light aren’t the white bulbs overhead, but the two rays of light hiding underneath. Ventus’s light shines brighter, the shadows around him starker than the ones around Xion, but they both glow all the same.

“Is that supposed to be a metaphor?” Vanitas asks.

“I guess,” Naminé hums. “For how I see them. And I think how you see them, too.” She darkens the shading around Ventus’s leg of the table a little more, scribbling rough marks into her paper.

“Yeah.”

She doesn’t draw them all the time as they go through the museum. Hell, she doesn’t draw all the time. There are exhibits where all she does is slip her phone out of her bag and take a couple of pictures. He doesn’t understand the logic behind her choices. He’s not even certain if there is any logic to be found there.

He does, however, understand why she pushes him towards a ten foot tall sculpture of a balloon dog. It’s kind of cool, actually. It looks like it’s made of neon blue rubber, but the entire thing is metal. He can feel the cold absorbed from the abnormally frigid air conditioning in the room radiating off the metal from how close she makes him stand.

Ventus snaps a photo of him as well. Vanitas waits for one of the security personnel to look away before glaring at him and flipping him off. All Ventus does is laugh, then show the picture to the girls until they’re laughing as well.

They encounter an entire wall full of cartoonish pop art, colors violently sprayed across every inch of space. Naminé and Xion both _adore_ it, walking along the mural and pointing out interesting parts to each other.

There’s a lot of blood.

Vanitas turns away and tries to focus on a cutesy sculpture of a mushroom that smiles brightly at him, feeling suddenly uneasy. Cartoons or not, the less he can be reminded of the old man’s war movies, the better.

When they do leave that exhibit and enter into another, one full of colorful portraits and sharp silhouettes, Vanitas feels like he can breathe again. Naminé asks some other museum patron to take a picture of the four of them. Naminé has them line up against the wall and pose next to a separate portrait. Vanitas has no idea who any of these people are, but Naminé moves with such a muted excitement that he doesn’t have the heart to tell her no.

The patron snaps the picture and hands Naminé back her phone. Smiling, she shows them the picture. Even in such casual clothing, Vanitas and Ventus in their dumb matching school sweatshirts and the girls in simple long sleeved shirts and shorts, they look less like a bunch of college students and more like they belong on a high fashion magazine.

“I can’t wait to draw this,” Naminé says. “Oh, or maybe paint it? Xion, what do you think?”

Xion flushes, clearly caught off guard. “I really don’t know anything about art, Nami. I’m sorry.”

“That’s true.” Vanitas snorts at her blunt words, but Naminé pays him no mind. “Hmm. How about this. Do you think this will make a good Twitter header?”

“Oh, yes!” Xion says, nodding eagerly.

“Okay. I’ll draw it digitally, then. Thank you.”

It doesn’t take too long to see everything the museum has to offer. They dick around in the gift shop for a little bit, flipping through photobooks and making faces at how expensive every single souvenir is. Xion, ever the good girlfriend, uses that fancy work paycheck of hers to buy Naminé a photobook from the artist who drew the giant mural they both loved. Vantas tries really hard to pretend it doesn’t exist, and is incredibly grateful when the cover gets hidden behind a plastic bag.

Eventually they’ve seen everything there really is to see, so they head out of the museum and back down the massive hill that leads to the Grand Central Market. Ventus looks longingly at a shuttered karaoke bar as they pass. Even if it wasn’t three in the afternoon and the place was open, they wouldn’t be able to go in. Vanitas makes a mental note to bring him there sometime over the summer, when they aren’t hanging out with people who still aren’t old enough to legally drink.

The Grand Central Market is full of life. Eggslut sits right in the very front. A line of people wraps around the small popup. Both girls frown at the name, but Vanitas cajoles them into staying.

After a solid twenty minutes of waiting (which is a pretty short wait, honestly), they finally get their food. Perfectly fried eggs sit on top of their burgers, the yolk dripping down into the meat as they bite into it.

“Wow, you were right, Vanitas,” Xion says, pausing to take another bite of her burger. “This is amazing.”

“I think this is the least disastrous date we’ve been on, Xion. We haven’t fallen, or gotten kicked out of someplace, or spilled something on each other. This may be a first.”

“That’s because you’re not on a da-” Vanitas begins to say, but he stops as Xion whips around to face Naminé, her burger still in her hands. She moves so fast that her burger self-destructs in her hands, pieces flying everywhere. Vanitas ducks out of the way before a stray bun can catch him in the face.

Naminé isn’t so lucky. The egg hits her square in the face, yellow yolk dripping down her cheek as she looks on in shock. The rest of the burger ends up both on her shirt and in her lap.

“Well,” Naminé says with a heavy sigh, peeling the egg off her face as Xion stammers apologies, “It was only a matter of time.”

Laughing so hard he nearly chokes on his spit, Vanitas pulls out his phone, documents the evidence of the crime, and Snapchats the video to every single one of their mutual friends.

 

* * *

 

iv.

“There’s a reason why I don’t talk about my past. The less I have to think about where I was before I came to LA, the better,” Vanitas says, picking at a small patch of grass by his hand. Xion wraps her arms around her knees and listens with rapt attention. She’s a good audience of one.

( _Two, if he counts the pile of ashes buried beneath him. He doesn’t really want to. He wants the bastard to be dead and stay dead, his spirit so far away that he can never hear Vanitas again. To have him any closer is too terrifying to handle._ )

“It was bad, Xion. Really fucking bad. I know I already told you some of this shit, but whatever. I’ll say it again. When I was really little, I think I idolized him. What kid doesn’t idolize their parents?” He bites back a groan. “He played these stupid war movies all the time. Whether it was to relive his favorite parts of his military career or just to blast them for being inaccurate, I don’t know. But there were always gunshots, always screaming. I used to crawl into his bedroom and watch them with him, back before they started making me sick. What kind of parent lets their six-year-old watch that kind of shit?”

“Not a very good one,” Xion comments softly.

Vindicated, Vanitas nods. “Exactly! What special brand of asshole do you have to be to think that’s okay?” he says, making no effort to bite back the next groan that comes. “Gave me the worst nightmares for _years_. He was always obsessed with power. Strength, self-sufficiency, all that bullshit. Drilled it into my head since the day I could listen. He and Eraqus - they both loved martial arts. They once dreamed of opening a dojo together, I think. Eraqus was a lot better at working with students than the old man ever was, though. By the time I came around, Eraqus was giving private lessons to three of them. You know - Ventus, Aqua, Terra. Meanwhile, all the old man had was me.”

He thinks back to those endless drills, the practices that left him covered in bruises and sore for days. “I went through these hellish judo lessons all the time. I had opponents to go against when I was really young, but after I broke Ventus’s arm I was too dangerous to be around the other kids. No one liked me at school, either. The old man never saw that as a problem. Maybe he even liked it, keeping me away from other people. With no one around, there was no one to call him out on his bullshit.”

That’s not true. There was one person who could, but never did.

“I became friends - really became friends - with Ventus at the end of elementary school. He never liked the bastard and back then, I didn’t understand why. Hell, I even _defended_ him from Ventus! Me, defending that monster! What the fuck, right?”

Xion doesn’t answer. She watches him quietly, waiting for him to continue.

Vanitas rips out a handful of grass, letting the clumps of dirt run through his fingertips. “I was twelve when my view started to change. It wasn’t anything big. Not at all. I just sat with Ventus and Aqua at lunch one day and I thought that I could never do this as long as he was around. I wouldn’t get to be happy the way I wanted. The way they were happy. The years went by and only proved me right.” Vanitas sighs. “He… he got worse, when he got sick. I used to be able to wander around that town where I grew up while he was at work. But his health started getting worse and worse, and there was no one but me to take care of him. He eventually got a nurse to stop by and take care of him, but the nurse was only part time. I was the full time caregiver. There was no one else who would do it.”

He takes a deep breath. “When I say he got worse, it wasn’t just physically. I felt like his servant. I wouldn’t have minded taking care of him if he, you know, actually gave a shit about me. If he didn’t spend hours insulting me when he didn’t care enough to realize I could hear him. He loved the sound of his own voice - I used to wake up to him calling me a monster in the middle of the night. I don’t even know who the fuck he was talking to! Himself? I don’t know. God, it was terrible. I couldn’t ask for anything without getting guilt tripped about how he couldn’t have that thing I wanted. New shoes because mine were falling apart? He needed them too, apparently. A haircut? He hadn’t gotten one in years, even before his hair all fell out. If it wasn’t benefiting him, it didn’t matter. I felt like a burden just for existing. I started dreaming of going to college just so I’d have a reason to leave him behind.”

And there’s that secret, hovering on the edge of his story. He chances a look at Xion. There’s no judgement there. There never has been anything but quiet acceptance.

In a tiny voice, he lets that secret out of the dark. “He… he started taking a lot of pills. Way more than you’d imagine. He kept a shoebox full of them by his bed. Hardcore painkillers, the kind of shit you’d give cancer patients. The kind of shit you could sell on the black market for thousands. They could really fuck you up if you weren’t careful. I never touched them of course, I’m not an idiot, but he had to be really meticulous when he took them. And…”

“And?” Xion asks softly, leaning a little closer.

“And I hated him so fucking much, Xion. I wanted a normal life. I wanted _friends_ , I wanted to have a family like the one I saw Ventus have. I wanted to be _free_. I wanted everything I thought he was keeping from me. I wanted to go one fucking day without having tea thrown at me or without being screamed at for _existing_. And the sicker he got, the harder it was for him to remember what pills to take. We always kept it written down so the nurse and I would know what to give him and when, but it would have been easy to fudge the pills. So many of them looked the same.”

Xion’s eyes widen, if only a fraction. Vanitas feels ready to throw up, but now that he’s started, he can’t stop.

“There was no one else who would help me get out. Ventus couldn’t. I never let him know enough to try. I was cornered. I thought about it, I really did. Giving him four painkillers instead of one. He wouldn’t know the difference, not if he was half-asleep when I gave them. I never did, but I got close.” The laugh that escapes him is pained, sour on his tongue and all through his throat. “He always called me a monster, and there are still times when I think he was right.”

Xion’s hand finds his and grips it tight, a lifeline to reality. He squeezes back just as tightly, trying to swallow around the ash in his throat. “You were a kid,” Xion insists.

“I was seventeen, Xion. You know,” he says, taking a deep breath, “I think the biggest thing that stopped me from ever trying was the thought of having to face Ventus after I did. Ventus never doubted that I was a good person, not even once. I think some part of me wanted that belief to be true. If I had gone through with it, I’d never be able to look him in the eyes again.” He scoffs. “What kind of kid thinks of this shit?”

Xion’s gaze turns harsh, full of protective fury. She grips his hand so tightly that it almost hurts. Almost. “One who spent his life hurting. Even if you thought about doing… that, that doesn’t make you a monster. Surviving a life like that and _still_ choosing to be kind takes a strength that’s hard to come by. You’re not bad, Vanitas. You never were.”

It’s amazing that he manages not to cry, despite the pressure building up in the back of his eyes. “Kind of ironic that for as badly as I wanted to be free, I don’t think I ever will be. Even when he kicked me out on my eighteenth birthday, some part of him still haunted me. He’s fucking _dead_ and there are still days when I don’t think I’ll ever be free.”

“We carry our childhoods with us,” Xion murmurs softly. He’s barely able to make out her words. “For better or worse, we still do.”

And they do. Maybe they always will.

“But we can be better from where we came from,” Xion says. “We always can.”

“Xion… can… can I hug you?”

Xion beams. “Always.”

So he does, pulling her close and hiding his face in the crook of her neck. Her hand is a comforting presence on his back, patting softly. He still doesn’t cry, but the gasps he pulls in are more watery than they should be.

Xion, being the amazing person she is, doesn’t comment on it. She just lets him sit and breathe.

He doesn’t know what he’d do without her.

After a while - how long, he has no idea - he pulls away. “Did that help?” she asks. Her eyes dart past him, settling on something over his shoulder, but he doesn’t pay it any mind. Must be a rogue squirrel or something she just noticed.

Did it? “A little. I always wished I could scream at him one last time, though. It’s not fair to yell at you. Not when you did nothing wrong.”

Xion hums, her eyes still staring into the distance. There’s worry in the furrow of her brows. Vanitas waves a hand in her face, suddenly wary. “What’s your deal?” he asks.

“I think there’s someone watching us.” She gestures over his shoulder.

Curious, Vanitas follows her gaze. His blood turns to ice in his body.

Eraqus, holding a single purple orchid, stands on the edge of the road they followed here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >:3c


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long time coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so first off i haven't been able to reply to comments on the last chapter yet (eep, sorry!) this week has been somewhat busy for me and this weekend will ALSO be busy, which is weird. what is being busy? i forgot.
> 
> buuut i did want to post this before the weekend! each timeline has it's own climactic point, so defining an overall climax can be difficult. in my mind, this chapter is the true climax of the entire fic. what happens here is, in many ways, what we've been building towards from the very start. it took me a long time to get to a state where i could be able to write this, and i'm very proud of the result.

iv.

“What are you doing here?” Vanitas shouts, getting to his feet in a flash. He stands in front of Xion, his arm raised as if to protect her - but from what? Eraqus? It doesn’t make any sense, but he doesn’t move.

He hears rustling as Xion gets to her feet behind him. Slowly, Eraqus comes closer, one painful step at a time. He crosses the expanse of graves in what realistically couldn’t be any longer than a minute. Still, Vanitas drowns in the lifetimes that pass until Eraqus is close enough to finally speak without having to shout back. “I’m here to pay my respects. What surprises me is that you’re here, too.”

“I’m not paying shit!” Vanitas snaps. All the anger he didn’t feel before flows through him in raging waves, whatever dam that had been holding it back before reduced to rubble. All it took was two sentences from Eraqus’s stupid mouth to leave him fuming.

“Vanitas,” Eraqus sighs out his name like he’s a dog that just pissed on the carpet again. “Must you be so confrontational every time we speak?”

“Do you really have to be such an ass!?” Vanitas retorts. Eraqus stops in front of him. Years later, and he still towers over Vanitas.

“Do _you_ really need to stay here if all you’re doing is picking a fight?” Eraqus asks, glaring down at him. “You’re an adult now, Vanitas. Despite that, I’ve never seen you act like one.”

“Hey-” Xion starts, angry on Vanitas’s behalf, but she cuts herself off as he shakes his head. As much as he appreciates someone being mad on his behalf, this isn’t her battle to fight.

Vanitas takes a deep breath, wrangles his anger back under his control. He can’t let it control him here. For as much as he wants to scream at Eraqus until his throat turns raw and bloody, he’s not sure if that’ll actually help anything.

Keeping his voice level, he speaks. “Eraqus. You were the only person the old man ever talked to besides me and the nurse. You were his only friend, if you can even call it that. I just- I want to know _why_. Why did you stay with him?”

_Why wasn’t I ever good enough?_

Eraqus’s gaze grows heavy. “He was the most important person in my life for many years, Vanitas. We lived through hell together. After all that, I could never bring myself to abandon him.”

“But he was a bad man! I _know_ you heard the way he talked about me! What kind of father says those kinds of things about their son?” In a fit of desperation, Vanitas clutches at the front of Eraqus’s shirt. That anger is still there, but its been tempered under this overwhelming desire to have the person in front of him truly understand what it felt like.

To know, without a doubt, that Vanitas isn’t making up a lifetime of pain.

“I never condoned the way he treated you,” Eraqus says in a rush.

He knew everything. All along, he knew.

Against his will, that familiar pressure presses against the back of Vanitas’s eyes. Tears, hot and angry, stream down his face before he can stop them. “Then why didn’t you _do something!?”_

“What would you have had me do, Vanitas? Call the police on a dying man? Have you taken away to god knows where? You had no relatives who could take you in. That withstanding, I know he only ever wanted you to be strong enough to stand on your own - it isn’t orthodox, but I’m certain he loved you.”

His fury, his despair, his rage - they all threaten to choke him. He can’t throw up this feeling, but he can let it spew out in his words. “I know what love looks like now, and that was never fucking it! Love doesn’t do that to you. Love doesn’t force you to spend hours throwing yourself onto the concrete over and over again until you’re covered in bruises you hide from your only friend! Love doesn't make you feel like a burden just for being alive! Love doesn’t keep you trapped, Eraqus. Love sets you free, and he’d never let me have that!”

Xion places a hand on his shoulder. Comforting, warm, secure. Slowly, Vanitas drops his hands from Eraqus and takes a step back. Closer to someone who does love him.

Eraqus sighs quietly. He is so old. So tired. “I spoke to him about why he made you leave when you turned eighteen, a few weeks before he passed. He told me that you were sharp, resourceful. You would find a way to stand on your own two feet. Please understand, Vanitas. I was furious with him when I first found out. I- I had tried to contact you, just as I know Ventus had tried. I would have offered you a space in my home, if you had ever wanted to take it. But you didn’t.”

“No. Fuck no. Don’t you _dare_ put the blame on me, Eraqus.” Xion’s words from before ring clear and true in his mind. He knows now that they are. “I was a kid! I was a kid, and I was more terrified than I had ever been in my life, and the moment you decided to be the adult I had needed my _entire life_ was too fucking late! You can’t take that back. You can’t make it right.”

He is no longer a child. He is an adult, became one the moment his soul was shoved in a body too big for him to fit into.

He carries that child with him still.

“I don’t know what you want from me, Vanitas. I can’t turn back the time and try again. I can only offer you what I can moving forward.”

Honestly, Vanitas doesn’t know what he wants either. Someone to scream at, maybe. He scrubs at his face with the end of his t-shirt, trying to wipe off some of the tears and snot all over his face. He feels gross.

He looks at the orchid that Eraqus still holds in his hands. Something occurs to him in that moment. Something that he already knew before. “You loved him, don’t you. No… you still love him. You knew exactly what he did to me, what he _was_ , and you still loved him anyways.”

Eraqus doesn’t respond. He doesn’t need to.

“Don’t you get it, Eraqus? You never did a single thing for me. It was always for him.”

Vanitas is Xehanort’s son. That fact will never change. That shattered home, that shelter of toxicity and abuse, is the one that he crawled out of with fingered rendered bloody and raw. He sees the marks of his father on him: the gold of his eyes, the tendrils of evil that still flare up within him, the trauma that nearly broke him until nothing remained.

They both had someone who never gave up on them.

Eraqus and Xehanort - they could have been Ventus and Vanitas, in another life. In a darker life.

But not in this life.

Vanitas is more than where he came from. He is not trapped within a prison of his own making.

No, he has a home, and he has a family. Not the one he came from, but the one that chose him.

He’s done here.

“I don’t forgive him. I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive him. And frankly? I don’t forgive you, either,” Vanitas says.

Eraqus seems to have come to some sort of acceptance. He can no longer meet Vanitas’s eyes. He wonders if it’s because of the piece of Xehanort he sees there. “...Very well.”

Maybe Vanitas will never forgive him, but that’s for Vanitas to decide. No one else.

“I’ll let you pay your respects. Just know that they’re meaningless.” Vanitas looks over his shoulder at the girl who still stands behind him. A constant source of support. “Xion. Let’s get out of here.”

They do, leaving Eraqus with his single orchid and his grief for a man who never deserved to have a single tear shed for him.

Before they get into Vanitas’s car, Xion hugs him. So, so tightly.

And he hugs her back.


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and we're back!!! the last part of this chapter is one of my favorite parts in the whole fic and it was a TON of fun to write, so i hope it's fun to read!!! party time.

iv.

Vanitas and Xion get back to his car without an issue, caught in a silence that isn’t quite companionable. It isn’t Xion that makes him uneasy; it’s the rush of emotions still coursing through him, heady and so tangled up in each other that he can’t tell the individual emotions apart. He all but collapses into his car, leaving Xion to quietly slip into the passenger seat.

She watches him, worried. “Are you okay, Vanitas?” She’s always said his name with such kindness. He’s never needed to hear that more than now.

He takes a deep breath. “I don’t know,” he exhales, letting his head thump against the headrest. He lifts up his hands. They won’t stop shaking. He feels detached from his own body. “Probably not.”

“I don’t really know who that man is, but that seemed really painful.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” Xion asks.

“Honestly? No.” He’s never let anyone but Ventus drive his car before. He never trusted anyone else to try, but then again, he never had anyone else to trust before. “You have a driver’s license?”

“Yes?” Why is she asking him a question back about her own license? The absurdity of it makes him chuckle.

“Would you be able to drive?”

“Oh!” she gasps, clearly shocked. “Oh, yes! I can drive. Are we going back home, or would you still like to get lunch?”

“Lunch. Preferably something greasy or full of carbs. Or both.”

They switch spots. It always feels strange to sit in the passenger seat of his own car. He pushes the seat back a little - his legs aren’t exactly long, but they’re definitely longer than every other person who usually claims this seat - and watches Xion as she fumbles with the levers. She mutters to herself as she tries to identify what each knob and lever’s purpose is.

“You use this to turn it on,” Vanitas says, tapping at the keyhole.

Giggling, Xion bats his hand away. “I know that! I’m just getting used to the layout. As for food…” she trails off as she pulls out her phone. She taps on the screen a few times. Vanitas watches as she crosses the gap from contemplative to satisfied. “I knew I saw an Italian place on the drive down. It’s just a few minutes away. Does that sound good?”

“Yeah.” It sounds fine, but why does it sound familiar?

Eh, he’s too exhausted and hungry to think about it.

Xion starts the car and pulls out of the parking spot with much more care than necessary. Vanitas is content to lay back and let her figure it out as he tries to settle himself. Is this what closure feels like? To have so much of him scraped away and set out for display?

What surprises him is that it doesn’t leave him feeling hollow, not this time. No, he feels more like a weight has been lifted off him. He’s not sure how to move without the pressure, but he’ll get used to it in time.

This is a good tired. A necessary tired.

“Hey, Xion?”

“Yes?”

“...Thank you. For coming here. Seriously.”

Xion’s smile is so gentle, glowing in the afternoon sun. “Of course.”

Somehow, the sight does him in. Tears cling to his eyelashes and slip down Vanitas’s cheeks without his permission. He tilts his head towards the window and watches the browning grass fly by.

Xion notices, because she’s too observant not to, but she doesn’t comment. All she does is find his hand and hold it tight.

There’s more he wants to tell her, but that can wait until they have some food.

 

* * *

 

i.

Vanitas gets an iPhone years after every other person over the age of thirteen gets a smartphone. Ventus has a single dorm now, so there’s no one to awkwardly interrupt them as Ventus hooks his chin over Vanitas’s shoulder (and he’s far closer than he needs to be, but it’s not like Vanitas is going to point that out) and walks him through how to use it.

His old phone was fine, but on a college campus, one of the first things people ask about whenever he mentions that he trains dogs is if he’s on Instagram. So if a smartphone is good for his fledgling business, then why not try it out?

“You can finally take a decent picture, Vanitas!” Ventus teases, reaching past him to open up the camera app. He flips the camera into selfie mode and Vanitas looks away, embarrassed by the unflattering preview that greets them. Are the bags underneath his eyes really that dark? Ugh.

“Okay, not like that,” Ventus amends, taking the phone out of his hands. He lifts it higher and moves it around slightly. “It’s all about the angle and the lighting. That’s how you make it look good.”

“I don’t know anything about photography, Ventus.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll help you out, okay? You’ll need good pictures, trust me. It doesn’t matter how good of a trainer you are if your pictures all suck.”

Scowling, Vanitas pushes his annoying ( _beautiful_ ) growth away and scoots toward the other side of the bed. Ventus still has his phone and shows no signs of giving it back, not as he lifts it up and takes a picture of himself. “Here, you big jerk. I’m setting a contact photo for myself,” Ventus adds.

“Knock yourself out,” Vanitas mutters.

“You really don’t have many contacts, do you?” Ventus asks, completely invading his privacy by scrolling through his phone. Sometimes, he can be a perfect gentleman, exactly the kind of boy his mom raised him to be. More often than that, he has absolutely no manners at all. Especially around Vanitas.

“Shut up.”

“Why does this name seem familiar?” Ventus lingers on a contact that Vanitas transferred from his old phone. He’ll need it again come February, when it’s time to submit his financial aid paperwork. He may have paid for his first year of school on his own, but if he’s serious about transferring, his paltry income won’t cut it any longer. “Is this…” he glances over to Vanitas, and whatever he finds in Vanitas’s haggard expression gives him an answer. “Oh.”

The nurse.

“You still… talk to him? Xehanort?” Ventus asks softly, clutching Vanitas’s phone a little tighter.

“What the fuck? No, of course I don’t! I have his nurse’s number for financial aid stuff.” Vanitas didn’t scream at the nurse last time they talked, not too loudly, but at least he was able to get the bastard’s tax information so he could apply for financial aid.

It wasn’t a good conversation, but cursing out the nurse felt pretty good. Scared him enough to get him to cooperate, too.

Even that thought does nothing to quell the familiar course of rage that spirals through him, molten lava coursing through his veins. He gets to his feet and begins to pace. “I can’t even think of the bastard’s name without being furious. What makes you think I can talk to him?”

Not after the way he - his own fucking _father_ \- left Vanitas for dead.

The best days, the most common days, are the ones when Vanitas doesn’t think of him at all. He makes a point to have as many of those as possible. If he pretends his past doesn’t exist, then he doesn’t have to face it.

Pacing is doing nothing to help his buzzing nerves. He needs somewhere bigger than a tiny dorm room to wander through. “I’m going on a walk,” Vanitas says, pointedly ignoring the worried ocean eyes that track his every movement.

“You’re not leaving, are you?” Ventus’s voice has shrunk to something only slightly above a whisper. Vanitas can’t distract himself from his anger long enough to offer whatever shreds of comfort he has within him.

“I’m not going back to Santa Monica, no. I just. I don’t know. I’ll walk down to campus or something.” Vanitas snatches his phone up from where Ventus hurriedly drops it on his bed, slings his backpack onto his shoulders, slides his feet into his flip-flops, and throws open the door.

Ventus makes a worried sound and hurries to grab his own things. “Wait! Let me come with you, please.” There’s an undercurrent of anxiety running through him, but Vanitas can’t soothe it either. All he can give him is a long enough pause to gather what he needs and follow him outside.

Vanitas hits a couple of slow people with the edge of his shoulder as he heads down the hallway and throws the heavy stairwell door open. Ventus’s hastily murmured apologies trail after him like embers. Their footsteps, slightly out of sync as they speed down multiple steps, echo in the quiet stairwell. The sound does nothing but propel Vanitas faster. He has to keep moving, keep going. He can’t let himself think, not with the bastard so close to haunting his thoughts.

That bastard doesn’t deserve to be called by name. Not anymore.

( _Vanitas is bitter and he knows it. How could he not be bitter? How could he not be full of hate? The bastard wouldn’t be surprised, at least. Seems all Vanitas ever does is prove him right._ )

They make it through the crowded dorms and down the sloping hill into campus proper. Vanitas takes a sharp left at the main quad, heading away from the main artery of campus that is eternally packed with people eager to give out flyers for their clubs. He’ll punch the first idiot who tries to bother him and he’s _really_ not in the mood to get the campus cops called on him.

Seriously, fuck cops.

There’s a slight breeze today, the wind cool on Vanitas’s face as he walks. More than anything, the fresh air helps him breathe again, shuddering deep in his lungs. He lets his pace slow a little, something that Ventus picks up on instantly. “Feeling better?” he asks softly.

Not better enough to stop moving, but better. “A little.”

“Do you want to keep walking?” Ventus is too fucking good for him. Vanitas could commit to a lifetime of good deeds and still never deserve him.

“Yeah.”

They walk around the perimeter of a wide plaza, breezing past the red-and-white brick steps leading up to the building that everyone just calls SAC. Vanitas has no clue what it’s for, but it’s massive and beautiful.

They reach the foot of the grand staircase that leads to the crown jewel of campus, the one that’s all over the school’s promotion material, when Ventus speaks again. “You know the animal shelter I volunteer at sometimes? The one in Culver City?”

“What about it.”

“They got a new puppy recently. A pitbull.”

They head up the staircase, one narrow step at a time. “So?”

“She’s really young. Last time I was there, the staff talked about getting someone to foster her. I know it’d be difficult to take in a puppy where you live, but I don’t think anyone could do it better than you.”

All of Vanitas’s anger is washed away by the tide, the ocean eyes watching him cleansing him time and time again. He’ll never understand how Ventus does it so effortlessly.

He wishes that he had the strength to hold Ventus close and kiss him the way he’s wanted to for years.

But he doesn’t, so all he does is nod. “...I’ll go check it out tomorrow.”

Ventus shines so brightly. “Great! I’ll go with you.”

The puppy is a scrappy, energetic little thing. She’s barely five weeks old. Someone found her hiding behind a dumpster in Culver City, covered in filth and starving. They tried looking for her mother or the rest of her litter, but the only answer they found was in the form of a roadkill report given to the city the week before.

The moment Vanitas picks her up, he is certain that he never wants to put her down again. She doesn’t have a name, so Vanitas starts calling her Gear. He isn’t sure why he does, but the name sticks.

So does the dog.  


* * *

  

iii.

Ventus’s dorm, despite having the same amount of stuff that it always has, feels emptier than Vanitas is used to. The video game posters that used to decorate half his walls have been relegated to a single poster tube that leans against boxes full of old textbooks. Most of his clothes have been boxed, too. Save for the lone duffle bag he’s been living out of for the past week, the few study materials left on his desk, and his bedding, the room is stripped clean of any hint of personality.

Tomorrow morning, Vanitas will help Ventus load all this junk into his car, drive the three miles to Terra’s brand-new apartment that Ventus will be staying at over the summer, and unload everything there. Vanitas won’t help unpack, but he’ll probably sit around and make fun of Terra for being twenty-four and having zero idea how to live on his own. Ventus will return to the dorms for what everyone hopes will be his last fucking year of college, but with Aqua RA’ing for the summer, Terra needs someone to take the spot in their shared apartment.

Vanitas hopes that Terra’s come to terms with the fact that Ventus _will_ be spending the weekends at Vanitas’s apartment. It isn’t up for debate, not when Vanitas meets clients during the day and Ventus primarily works evening shifts at the veterinary clinic he managed to get a second job at over the summer.

That’s still a few days away, though. For now, Vanitas sits on Ventus’s tiny couch as his boyfriend flops onto his bed with a groan. “The school year is _finally_ over!” Ventus says, weakly punching the air. “We’re free!”

“Free from a forty-five minute multiple choice exam? Wow, Ventus. I can’t imagine how hard your life must be.”

He’s rewarded with a pillow chucked at his face for that comment. “Can’t you just be happy that we’re done? Come on, we have a whole summer to look forward to!”

“Getting paid is better than studying, I guess.”

“Yeah, it is!”

“Says the guy who has four more years of vet school to suffer through after graduation.”

Ventus groans loudly. “Ugh, don’t remind me! I have to start studying for the GRE. I’m taking it in September.”

“That’s what you get for wanting to help animals. More standardized testing.”

Ventus props himself up on his elbows so he can look at Vanitas. He expects to see some kind of glare directed at him, but the expression he’s greeted with instead is confused. “Hey, why are you all the way over there?”

“Because I didn’t want to sit in your uncomfortable desk chair?”

Ventus offers him a grin as he opens his arms. “Then come here. I wanna cuddle.”

That instinctive curl of fear in Vanitas’s gut still isn’t fully gone, but he reminds himself that the absolutely worst thing that could happen right now is that they start making out, lose track of time, and end up being late to Terra and Aqua’s graduation party that’s still a solid six hours away. There’s nothing to be afraid of here.

Ventus’s bed may be small, but they can both fit if they completely ignore any sense of personal space. Vanitas tentatively pillows his head on Ventus’s chest and curls into his side, letting Ventus’s easy affection wash over him with the arm that wraps around his shoulders and the kiss pressed into his hair. Ventus’s other hand is occupied with his phone as he scrolls through his Instagram feed.

“You always want to cuddle,” Vanitas points out. Not that he’s really complaining. “Or kiss. Or take up my personal space.”

“That a bad thing?”

“No.”

Ventus, the smug ass, hums. Vanitas feels it reverberate in his chest, settling over the heartbeat that steadily beats against his ear. “It makes sense in my head. I’ve waited a long time for this. Besides, it’s just the two of us here and I’m in love with you. Why wouldn’t I want to be as close as possible to you?” Vanitas shivers at his words, prompting the hand resting on his shoulder to pull him even closer.

Ventus has taken to sneaking those admissions into snippets of their conversations. He drops boulders on Vanitas like they’re pebbles, handling the power behind those words with an effortlessness that Vanitas still feels buried under.

They walk together now, moving forward in near-tandem. In this facet, Vanitas lags behind.

He wants to tell Ventus that he loves him. He hopes Ventus knows. Despite that, he still can’t. He settles for scooting up just far enough to kiss Ventus, hoping that his actions are enough to communicate those words that still won’t come.

Ventus goes back to his social media. Vanitas is content to watch, especially as Ventus’s hand drags lazily up and down his side. He recognizes Kairi’s icon at the very top of the screen and points to it. “Hey. Look at that.”

Ventus clicks it, revealing a series of selfies showing Kairi with an older couple with what looks like a small bar in the background. There’s one part of the story that’s just a video of an empty restaurant, showcasing small booths, the same bar in the last few pictures, and an empty room with sound equipment set up in the corner.

 _Grad party: almost ready to go!!!_ Her caption reads. The video is followed by another photo of the outside of the venue, the building small and unassuming for how large it is inside.

Then, there’s another photo that follows it, showcasing _exactly_ why Kairi chose to rent out a family-owned Chinese restaurant for a graduation party. A large, scallop-shaped bowl of what Vanitas is certain is alcohol takes up most of the table, followed quickly by a selfie of Kairi gasping at the drink.

 _Scorpion bowl!!! >:) _Her message reads.

“She really went all out,” Ventus says. “She hasn’t even put up the decorations yet.”

“God, of course she’d bring decorations. What are they, seashells and wads of kelp?”

Ventus laughs. “Probably. Come on, she put so much thought into the theme. We gotta dress up for it. I have a good button down you can wear.”

The theme is _Under the Sea_ , which Vanitas is certain Kairi picked solely to spite him for all the times he made fun of her for being a weird deep-sea creature. College parties thrive off dumb themes, and this one is no different. Aqua and Terra already approved of it, much to Vanitas’s chagrin.

“I can’t fit into any of your button downs,” Vanitas points out. Unlike Ventus, he’s not a complete twig.

Grinning, Ventus sets his phone down by his pillow and takes Vanitas’s hand in his. Slowly, he unfurls his fingers one at a time, brings Vanitas’s hand to his face, and kisses his palm. His eyes glitter like the sunlight on the waves, coy and teasing.

Vanitas can’t breathe.

“I know. I never said you had to button it shut.”

Vanitas sees two options before him.

One: he could rip his hand out of Ventus’s grip and smack at him halfheartedly for being a flirt and for implying that he should show up to a party full of their friends basically shirtless for no damn reason besides being his boyfriend’s eye candy.

Two: he could give in to the sudden change in mood that hangs over the room, to the electricity that crackles within him at being faced with so much of Ventus’s want. He could then expand his repertoire of spots on Ventus’s neck that make him gasp (in a voice that, as Vanitas has recently learned, never fails to make him shiver in delight when he hears it) when Vanitas kisses him there.

He goes for the second.

Vanitas does try on one of Ventus’s button-downs later on, a short sleeved one in dark blue and covered in white jellyfish that he digs out of his duffle bag. The sleeves are shorter than the t-shirts he’s used to, leaving half of his tattoo sticking out the bottom.

Ventus doesn’t stop staring the entire time he spends changing.

No, what he does is say something that makes Vanitas short-circuit for a solid thirty seconds. “ _God_ , Vanitas, I’ve wanted to touch your abs since we were sixteen. Please, _please_ let me.”

Unbelievable.

( _He does. Ventus’s hands feel like fire in the best possible way._ )

By the time dinner rolls around, they manage to drag themselves down to one of the nearly-empty dining halls and stuff themselves full of food. The dorms in particular swarm with students during nearly every hour of the day. Seeing the small areas so empty, broken up primarily by the yellow and blue moving carts that exhausted students push between parking lots where parents wait and their dorms, always feels strange. Like a ghost town.

They trudge back up the massive staircase that most students have nicknamed the Death Stairs, winded by the time they reach the top, only to drag themselves up another two sets of staircases to Ventus’s dorm. Ventus putters around his room, shoving his own button down and shorts for the party, the shirt he wants Vanitas to wear, a set of pajamas, and clothes for tomorrow into his backpack. It’s a wonder he makes it all fit, but he does.

The apartments are a little more populated, but not by much. The relative quiet makes it easy to whittle away the few remaining hours until the party together. They take Gear and Void on their nightly walk, Ventus frets over his hair in the bathroom mirror for a solid fifteen minutes, and Vanitas relents to dressing to the stupid theme as long as he can wear a tank top underneath the button down.

Ventus’s outfit is awful. The absolute worst. He saunters out of the bathroom after changing like he shouldn’t be completely ashamed of what he’s wearing. “Like it?” he asks, doing a slow spin in the middle of the hallway.

He wears a short-sleeved button down similar to Vanitas’s, except it fits him so it’s buttoned down properly. Bright, cartoonish pineapples adorn the light blue fabric. He’s paired it with a set of neon yellow board shorts and holds up a garish green pair of flip flops he must have dug out of the dumpster behind the City Target.

“You look like a highlighter threw up on you.”

Ventus grins. “Perfect. You could stand to add a little more color, you know. A black tank top and black shorts? For a party?”

“Don’t you remember how many goths are going to be there? Please. I’m plenty festive.”

Ventus laughs. “I love you,” he says yet again, the words sliding from him with an unbearable amount of ease. He drops these _I love yous_ the same way that people comment on the weather - without a second thought. “You look good, though. You’ve always looked good in black.”

Vanitas’s heartbeat races in his ears. Ventus destroys him so sweetly, so absolutely effortlessly. It isn’t fair. Struggling to find some kind of response, he tugs at the sleeves of his overshirt. “This shirt isn’t black,” he says lamely.

“No one will be able to see the difference in the dark-” Ventus cuts himself off, a strange expression settling over his features. “Actually, do you think there will be a blacklight? I hope there is.”

“What? Why?”

“Because _these_ ,” Ventus says, coming close enough to run his fingers over a jellyfish on Vanitas’s bicep, “are definitely light enough to glow under blacklights.”

Vanitas rips off the overshirt and throws it at his stupid boyfriend, but it does nothing to make him stop laughing.

He puts the shirt back on before they leave anyways, so it’s not like anything really changed.

The venue is only twenty minutes away. It’s deceptively small on the outside, nothing but another tiny, featureless restaurant on Pico Boulevard. It’s far enough south of Beverly Hills to have none of the glitz of that place, which Vanitas finds he appreciates more and more over time. It’s still a busy street, still packed with cars and people throughout the day, but there’s something authentic in the feeling he gets here. It’s nice.

Vanitas pulls up to an empty meter and double checks the parking sign above him to make sure he doesn’t have to pay this late in the evening. Satisfied, he gets out of the car and lets his sun-bright boy take him by the hand. Ventus cheerfully greets the bouncer as they enter. A guy that tall and that tan must be one of Terra’s rowers.

Blacklights cast the room in a purple glow. The inside is bigger than even Kairi’s posts suggested, giving them plenty of room to slip past the people already gathered at the bar. Plastic kelp hangs from the ceiling like streamers, while fake coral and seashells adorn the center of every table and line along the bar. Almost everyone seems to have dressed for the theme, wearing something vaguely ocean-related.

Just as Ventus predicted, Vanitas’s borrowed shirt glows with pinpricks of color. Ventus laughs his ass off, but before Vanitas can shove him away for being awful, he finds himself with an armful of boyfriend. His sweet kiss make Vanitas’s irritation flee in seconds, leaving him with warmth crashing over his insides in pleasant waves and a nice looseness to his limbs.

He completely melts at Ventus’s touches and they both know it. Ventus pulls away enough to where Vanitas can no longer feel his breath ghosting over his face, but close enough to intertwine both of their hands. “I’m gonna go say hi to some of the grads. Do you want to come with me?”

“By some of the grads, do you mean Terra and Aqua?”

Ventus rolls his eyes. “They’re not actually here yet, so no. I know a lot of their grad friends, though.”

Greeting a bunch of strangers he’ll never see again? As if. “Pass. I’ll go find Naminé.” Still craving more affection, Vanitas leans forward and steals a quick peck before finally breaking their connection. Ventus smiles at him with the smile that Vanitas is now certain is reserved solely for him before disappearing into the crowd.

Vanitas watches him go, feeling more in love than he thought was possible. How do people live like this? How can they handle this overpowering emotion? It isn’t bad, it’s just so powerful. He can barely withstand it.

The thought that they really are _that_ couple brings him back down to earth. Xion and Naminé are obviously together, given the tender intimacy that follows them whenever they interact, but they aren’t half as disgustingly affectionate as Vanitas has allowed himself to be. He tries to think of other couples he knows. He’s pretty sure Kairi is dating one (or both?) of the boys he sees all over her social media, and they’re definitely just as bad as Ventus and Vanitas are. At least that’s a comfort, however small it may be.

He passes by a booth where two already wasted people, neither of whom he recognizes, are very aggressively making out. Feeling suddenly uneasy, he looks away and walks a little faster. For as schmoopy as he may be, this _is_ a college party. Raging hormones are the norm here.

At least he and Ventus aren’t _that_. Not in public, at least.

A hand slips out of one of the booths and pulls him in. Bewildered, he gets ready to tell off whoever just manhandled him into this seat, only to see both Naminé and Kairi smiling pleasantly at him. Naminé wears the necklace Xion got her for her birthday, sitting right against the collar of a lavender dress. On her head is a felt octopus hat, its purple tentacles resting just past her shoulders.

Kairi, surprisingly enough, looks pretty normal. That changes completely when she opens her mouth to reveal a row of razor-sharp teeth. Giggling, she reaches behind her ear and a small light flickers to life above her forehead.

“Kairi.” Vanitas says, “What. The. _Fuck_.”

“I’m a weird sea creature,” she says proudly, flicking the light on and off because she can. She must have bought the teeth from a costume shop or something. Once Vanitas gets over his initial shock, he realizes that they’re clearly plastic. They’re so large that they make her speak with a heavy lisp. “That’s what you think I am, right?”

Vanitas groans.

“I think you look great, Kairi,” Naminé says, patting her friend’s shoulder. Kairi leans into her with a grateful smile.

“I’m glad you dressed to the theme, Vanitas. I didn’t think you would. Ooooor,” Kairi pauses just long enough to reach across the table separating them and tug on Vanitas’s sleeve, “Did Ven dress you?”

Vanitas hopes that it’s too dark for her to see the flush that sprawls over his face. Judging by her giggle, fate isn’t that kind to him. “Figures! Well, I’m glad he did. I love the jellyfish shirt.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Anyways,” Naminé says, putting a couple of leis made of purple and white flowers on the table. Vanitas recognizes them instantly. Every year, right before graduation, countless booths pop up across campus to sell these leis to new graduates. “Have you seen Terra and Aqua? This party is for them, but I haven’t seen them yet.”

“I need to give them their leis! Every graduating senior here gets one,” Kairi adds.

“You’re out of luck. Ventus said they’re not here yet.”

Kairi and Naminé exchange confused looks. “Hmm... I wonder why that is?” Naminé says.

Vanitas shrugs. “What do I look like, their keeper?”

“No. You look like their keeper’s boyfriend,” Kairi says. Both girls laugh at him. He barely resists the urge to flip them both off, but only barely. He settles for scowling at them with as much unbridled irritation he can manage.

Music has been steadily pumping through the speakers overhead, though Vanitas only notices it when Kairi’s eyes go wide and she gasps in delight. “Oh, oh! I love this song!” Vanitas doesn’t recognize it. Judging from Naminé’s expression, neither does she. “Nami, Van, come dance with me!”

“Pass,” Vanitas says, dodging out of Kairi’s way when she makes a grab at his wrist. Naminé isn’t so lucky, and she gets dragged out of the booth and onto the dance floor situated on the other side of the bar. Once they’re out of sight, hidden behind the moving pulse of bodies, Vanitas slides out of the booth and goes over to the bar where he finds all three of the twilight trio clustered together. Roxas and Xion, both of whom are clad in all black from head to toe, huddle behind Axel. Save for the single seashell he’s taped to his shoulder, he doesn’t fit the dumb theme, either.

Across from the three is a man with sharp green eyes and long blue hair. A delicate X-shaped scar bisects his face. He looks like someone Vanitas would _not_ want to fuck with. The two kids who stare daggers into him, even cowering behind their tree of a friend like they are, do not appear to feel the same way.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Vanitas hisses to Xion.

Two pairs of blue eyes turn to look at him, bewildered. They exchange glances with each other, sharing some silent conversation that Vanitas has no way to translate. Whatever they decide on results in Roxas’s hand shooting out to grab his wrist and tug him behind Axel as well.

Meanwhile, Axel carries on a conversation with the man in front of him like there _aren’t_ three people using him as a human shield. “That’s the TA!” Roxas hisses. “Right there!”

“What TA?” Vanitas is so lost.

“So Xion and I met each other because we took the same class at the beginning of the year, right? We bonded over how much the TA sucked. And _he_ ,” Roxas says, shooting the dirtiest glare he can manage at the man, “Is that TA.”

“And he’s Axel’s _best friend_ ,” Xion adds, horrified. “Or ex. Both? I don’t know. They’re _really_ close.”

“So why is he at a party for undergrads?” Or recent grads, whatever.

“We don’t know!” Roxas laments. “Because Axel hates us?”

“I can hear everything you’re saying, you know,” Axel says. There’s a beer in his hand - did he steal that from Roxas? - and he takes a long swig of it before continuing. “Vanitas, meet Isa. He’s my plus one. Known him for years.”

Vanitas steps out from behind Axel to regard the other man. “You were _Roxas’s_ plus one,” Vanitas points out. “Even I know a plus one isn’t supposed to bring a plus one.”

“But this plus one’s plus one has a purpose!” Axel announces proudly.

“And that is?” Vanitas asks.

It’s actually the plus one’s plus one that answers his question. “I’m a hate sink,” Isa explains. “I don’t have any personal issue with those two,” he says, gesturing to the two people still regarding him suspiciously. “My issue came with how often they interrupted me during section with their constant _giggling_.”

“Yeah, but you were the one who gave us both C minuses on our essays! We almost failed that class because of you!” Roxas says, pointing an accusatory finger at Isa like he’s a criminal caught red-handed.

Isa simply raises an eyebrow. “You should have written better essays.”

Roxas is too busy spluttering in sheer frustration to notice Kairi’s long-haired boy breeze past them. Suddenly, Isa calling himself a _hate sink_ makes complete sense. Roxas can’t be angry over his middle school ex (seriously? Dude needs to get over it already) if he’s too busy being frustrated by an old TA he hates.

Isa turns his attention away from the angry teens to flag down the bartender. Moments later, there’s a drink in his hand. “The free alcohol is definitely a bonus. Thanks, Lea.”

“Wait…” Xion creeps out from behind Axel. “That’s the second time you’ve called him Lea. Why is that?”

Axel immediately begins to laugh nervously, but Isa claps his hand over the other man’s mouth to muffle the sound. “He never told you? Typical. His real name is Lea. Axel’s just a nickname from our first year here that he likes too much to abandon.”

Both Roxas and Xion hop out from behind Axel. “ _What!?”_ They shout in unison, crowding around him.

“Really, Lea?” Isa looks unimpressed. “Again?”

Axel (Lea?) takes a deliberate step back and an even more deliberate sip of his drink. “Good luck with that,” Vanitas mutters to him as he makes a quick exit. That is a goofy shitshow he does not want to deal with, thanks. He’s certain they’ll all be fine in an hour, given how they interact with each other, but he’ll go find some other corner to take up until the dust settles.

Vanitas rounds the other side of the bar, giving him a full view of the half of the venue that’s been turned into a dance floor. There’s a decent amount of people there. Not too many as to feel claustrophobic, but just enough to make it feel like a crowd. Most of the people he spots are vaguely recognizable at best, though many strangers make it into the mix.

Deep into the crowd, he spots Kairi and Naminé with the brown-haired boy. He guides them through a series of dance moves that are clearly choreographed - the kind of thing he’d see in a performance, not on a dance floor full of drunk college students. Kairi follows along enthusiastically. Naminé moves a little more timidly, but a smile shines on her face as the boy helps her.

Ventus makes his way through the crowd, clearly trying to pass through. Kairi tugs him into their little group and within moments, he’s another student being taught how to dance. Vanitas smiles at the sight, though he feels no need to join.

Except that Kairi catches him watching. With a sharp-toothed grin, she darts out of the crowd and pulls him in. “I knew you couldn’t resist,” she teases him. Three pairs of bright blue eyes watch him warmly, barely offset by the coolness of Naminé’s pale blue eyes.

“Hey! I’ve heard about you. Vanitas, right? I’m Sora. Nice to meet’cha!” the brown-haired boy says. His grin is so earnest and open that Vanitas can’t find it in himself to be an ass.

“Uh, yeah,” he says slowly. The others all beam. Ventus darts forward just long enough to capture his hand and give it a brief squeeze.

“I was just showing the others some choreo from my dance crew! Here, I’ll teach you how to do it too,” Sora says, launching back into a series of synchronized moves.

There are almost a dozen dance crews across campus and they’re all absolutely terrifying. Vanitas has walked by the parking lots at night only to hear the sound of muffled music and fifty pairs of feet moving in unison. Sora dances with the fluidity those dancers all have; freshman or not, no wonder he made the cut so young.

They all fuck up the moves multiple times, stepping out of beat to the music pounding from the speakers overhead or missing a transition, but it’s fun. No one’s paying attention to them, anyways. There’s no need to feel embarrassed.

At some point, Sora looks at him with that sunny grin and says, “You know, I think you and me could be pretty great friends!”

“Yeah… maybe we can,” Vanitas says. Maybe they really can.

Sora teaches them different moves until a cheer ripples through the crowd. Ventus perks up immediately and rushes to the entrance. Vanitas tails him, pushing through the throngs of people that gravitate towards the front door.

Terra and Aqua stand at the entrance, flushed and laughing even under the glow of the blacklights. Their hands are intertwined and they stand so close together that nothing could tear them apart.

Vanitas chuckles. Looks like they finally sorted their own shit out. Took them long enough… though it’s not like he’s one to talk.

Ventus emerges from the crowd and throws himself at them both, bringing them into a tight embrace. “You made it!” he says happily as they return his hug.

“We made it,” Aqua confirms, laughing as Ven tries to visibly squeeze the life out of her.

“Sorry we’re late. We had some,” Terra pauses briefly to share a look with Aqua that Vanitas recognizes all too well, “ _business_ to sort out.”

“Yes. Business,” Aqua says, a false stiffness in her voice.

“About time!” Ventus replies, finally pulling away to regale them with what must be his brightest smile. “Congratulations on everything. Seriously.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you, Ven,” Terra says.

“There they are!” Kairi says, pushing past Vanitas to get to the graduates. Two leis have materialized around each of her arms, and she stands on the tips of her toes to drape them around Terra and Aqua’s necks. “Now the real party can start!”

“I don’t know, Kairi. Looks like the party started fine without us,” Aqua says, glancing around.

“That was the pre-party,” Kairi insists, tugging them both forward into the fray.

Vanitas might as well be nice. This is their night, after all. “Hey, congrats on getting through five years of hell,” Vanitas says as they pass. Upon hearing him, Aqua breaks free of Kairi’s grasp and comes to a stop directly in front of him. He looks up at her, his body tensing up as he prepares to take a step back.

Except he doesn’t move.

All Aqua does is envelop him in a warm smile. The river doesn’t drag him under its rapids. It flows along his side, leaving him free to wander. “Thank you, Vanitas. I have three years of grad school after this, but it’ll be nice to have a summer break. You get through this too, okay? You’re almost done.”

It’s one of the most genuine interactions they’ve ever had. A little startled, Vanitas somehow manages to nod. Satisfied, Aqua rests her hand on his head and ruffles his hair before jogging to catch up to Terra.

He’s seen her do that same gesture to Ventus so many times.

The strangest thing is that he didn’t mind it at all.

For all Kairi’s talk, the second half of the party isn’t all that different from the first. Roxas and Xion, having calmed down from the initial shock of learning more about Axel than ever before, spend the majority of the night hounding Isa for stories about Axel’s life before he came to this city. The four of them claim a booth, sharing stories and laughing with ease. If Vanitas didn’t know better, he’d think those four had spent their entire lives together.

At one point, Xion slips away to go dance with her girlfriend and Roxas gets bowled over by Sora, who only leaves him alone after he gets Roxas to promise that they’ll hang out together when Sora goes home for the summer too. Terra and Naminé huddle in a corner together as Naminé happily shows him her latest sketches, Aqua finds the silver-haired boy and envelops him in a conversation that seems too gentle for a party, and Ventus…

Ventus seeks Vanitas out once more and pulls him back onto the dance floor. That smile reserved solely for him is back in full force as they dance together. Vanitas doesn’t recognize the song playing over them; he doesn’t care to try. Not when all his attention stays focused on the burst of sunlight whose every movement matches his.

After a while, he stops hearing the music. All he can hear are the ocean waves.

He is so in love and Ventus deserves to hear that spoken out loud so badly.

When the party starts to die down, strangers filtering out of the venue in twos and threes, Vanitas sees his chance. He doesn’t want to tell Ventus here, not when it could be drowned out or interrupted by any number of things.

No, he has the perfect idea. “Ready to get out of here? I want to go on a drive with you.”

“A drive, huh? Where?”

“You know. Around.”

Ventus rolls his eyes, but there’s a smile stretching across his lips that won’t leave. “Yeah, we can go. Let me go say bye to Terra and Aqua, okay?”

“Go for it.” Ventus pulls away from him to go find his friends. Vanitas might as well let someone know he’s leaving as well.

He looks around for a familiar head of black hair and finds it back in the booth with her twilight friends and the newest addition to their group. The four of them are all laughing at something, the details of which are lost to Vanitas as he approaches. All he can tell is that Axel is the one supplying the story, given how wildly he keeps gesturing and how he manages to choke out some sentences between his own laughter.

He doesn’t feel bad at all interrupting the festivities. He taps Xion on the shoulder. She looks up to him, a grin on her face. “Hi, Vanitas,” she says warmly.

“I’m heading out. We’re still on for tomorrow, yeah?”

Xion nods. “Of course. See you later.”

“Yeah.”

Ventus meets him by the door a few minutes later. Vanitas’s heart leaps into his throat and stays there as he takes Ventus by the hand and leads him away.

He deserves this. They both do. This, and so much more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "ven touching vanitas's abs is the real climax of this fic" -both of my betas, speaking wisdom


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE FINALLY MADE IT TO THE END!!!! thank you so much for reading to the end! this story has meant so much to me while writing it, and i've been completely blown away by its reception. i started this fic with one very specific purpose in mind, and... well, i think it met that purpose! it feels so good to finally have it finished, but i'll miss it a lot.
> 
> my twitter handle is in my profile, but i'll link it here as well: feel free to follow me @bribird_wings if you would like! i tweet about lots of stuff and i'll probably do a little thread on this fic later today.
> 
> lastly, thank you so much to atla and nis!!! thank you so much for your endless support and guidance. this fic would have lingered at 20k in a dusty google doc for forever if not for them!!!
> 
> and one last thanks to everyone who has read this. i hope you've gotten something meaningful from this fic.

i.

Vanitas didn’t think it was possible. He’s a high school dropout. His entire resume consists of answered Craigslist ads, word-of-mouth recommendations, and Instagram posts. He’s studied his ass off to actually make good grades, sure, but he’s never excelled the way Ventus and his friends always have.

Yet he can’t deny the email that takes up his entire phone. _Congratulations on your acceptance to UCLA!_ It reads, cheering him on in the way that so little of his life ever has.

He’s not too sure what he wants to do with a Chemistry degree, but he’s spent two years working towards this goal. Never once did it feel attainable. Never once did he actually think he’d get it.

Except he did, and it feels like the first accomplishment he’s ever truly gotten.

He speeds during the entire drive to Ventus’s (and what will soon be his, too) campus. By some stroke of luck, he’s able to find street parking on the street that straddles the line between the private apartments and the student dorms. He tears up multiple staircases, weaving in and out of the crowd of students as they carry food and shuffle to and from classes.

He nearly runs into Terra and Aqua, both carrying bags of craft supplies from Michael’s. He’s riding too much of a high to ignore them as they wave to him.

He doesn’t wave back, but he doesn’t allow the grin that already split his face in two to end. They exchange amused glances. He rarely talks to them, save for the times Ventus drags him along to one of their RA events for their respective floors, but it’s fine. Their disdain is comfortable.

Right now, Vanitas is still too elated to settle into that disdain. Not when he has something to share with the lone spark of sunlight guiding his way forward.

Why Ventus decides, year after year, to live in the dorm at the very top of the hill all the residential housing is in (and the one without air conditioning, for that matter), Vanitas has no clue. He’s out of breath by the time he’s made it to the back door, but waiting for someone to let him in as they leave for class gives him just enough time to catch his breath. His legs burn from sprinting up so many stairs, but the pain is a good one.

Some random girl lets him in without a second glance and he tears past her, squeezing into the first elevator he sees just before the doors shut. He jabs the button for Ventus’s floor and keeps the button to close the doors firmly jabbed shut, grateful that he’s the only person here. He doesn’t know if this trick actually works, but hell if he wants to wait for other people to filter in and out as he tries to go up eight floors.

When he finally gets to Ventus’s floor, he squeezes out of the doors before they fully open and tears down the hall. A left onto the other side of the hall and three doors down, he finds Ventus’s door. He pounds on the door with his fist. “Ventus! I know you’re in there! Open up!”

“I’m coming, jeez!” Ventus shouts from the other side of the door. Ventus wrenches it open moments later, sharing the same excitement that roars through Vanitas. “Today’s the day, right? Did you get it?”

Vanitas’s hands shake as he unlocks his phone and pulls up the email. He’s read it so many times that he’s practically memorized the words. Ocean eyes dart across his screen then settle directly on Vanitas. A shiver runs down his spine. Ventus’s gaze is intense. Paired with a grin that holds all the force of the Santa Monica sunlight on a spring afternoon, it’s a wonder Vanitas doesn’t drown underneath this force.

With a wordless shout, Ventus flings himself at Vanitas, forcing his back to slam into the opposite wall. The sudden impact knocks the wind out of Vanitas’s lungs and makes a pathetic wheeze worm its way out of him. Ventus pulls away with a sheepish grin and a quiet apology, though his hands remain on his shoulders. Vanitas never wants him to let go.

“I’m a Bruin,” Vanitas says weakly.

( _It will take him so many months to realize why he remembers that name, when he’s never bothered to learn this school’s mascot before. The connection won’t solidify until the day a twilight girl, the one he met just a month ago but has already forgotten, fills a gap in his life that he didn’t know was missing._ )

“You’re a Bruin! Just like me!” Ventus says, laughing. His arms move from Vanitas’s shoulders to his waist, pulling him into a tight hug. Vanitas’s feet leave the carpet with a shock of terror, though it melts to warmth as he realizes that Ventus picked him up off the ground. He doesn’t really know how a touch this beautifully intimate is supposed to work, but he goes with what feels natural.

Vanitas loops his arms around Ventus’s neck and rests their foreheads together. Ventus’s laughter is contagious as they spin in circles, uncaring of who might see them or what they might say.

This feels like hope.

 

* * *

 

iii.

The drive is mostly quiet. Ventus dozes in the passenger seat as Vanitas branches further and further away from the main roads and towards the one he wants to take. He’s never driven on Mulholland Drive before, but he’s heard the stories of how gorgeous it is.

It’s late. So late that the clock on his dashboard straddles the line between night and early morning. Still, the sun won’t be up for several hours to come. They have plenty of time. Besides, Vanitas isn’t entirely sure what he’s looking for. He knows the sight he’s waiting for has to be somewhere along this road. He just has to be patient.

The music seems a little loud given the way Ventus’s head lolls against his headrest with every bump in the road, so Vanitas turns it down until it's barely audible. He can sleep for now. He must be exhausted. Makes sense, given how long this day has been.

They end up in the Hollywood Hills, driving past large homes that are worth more than Vanitas could ever hope to make in a lifetime. That iconic sign sits in the distance, resting high up enough on the hills that not even these rich houses can cover it. He keeps going; that isn’t what he’s looking for either.

It takes another fifteen minutes of driving along this winding road, curling through hills and past mini-mansions, before he finds it. The exact sight he was looking for. Giddy, Vanitas pulls into the next turnout and parks his car.

He goes to shake Ventus awake, but his hand freezes in place as he thinks of a better idea. It’s so sappy it borders on disgusting, but if Ventus likes it, then that’s all that matters. Besides, there’s no one around to see them. Vanitas can afford to be a little sappy. He gets out and goes to the passenger door, opening it as quietly as he can. Not even that loud click wakes Ventus up; he must be really tired.

Ah, he’ll take him back soon. He didn’t drink during the party, determined to stay just as sober as Vanitas throughout the night, so at least he’ll be easy to put to bed. Vanitas can easily tuck him under his chin and hold him close when they do go back.

“Ventus, wake up. We’re here,” Vanitas whispers, kissing his cheek. Ventus stirs, a small smile tugging at his lips and tugging right at Vanitas’s heart. He is so _weak_ for this boy, it’s ridiculous. He tries again, with a kiss right on his mouth, some drivel about fairy tales and sleeping princes tittering in the back of his mind.

Ventus’s eyelashes flutter against his skin as his eyes open. A hum rumbling in his chest, he sleepily kisses Vanitas back. He feels ready to burst from the sheer tenderness of the gesture. Vanitas goes to pull away, but fingers walk along his shoulders and come to rest at the nape of his neck, keeping him in place.

It takes a few more kisses to get Ventus onto his feet, following after Vanitas the whole way. “I could get used to waking up like that,” he comments so fucking effortlessly. Vanitas wants to bury his face in his neck, hold him tight, and not let go until the sun rises to greet them.

Instead of doing that, he flirts back. “I could get used to waking you up like that,” he says, trying his hardest not to trip over his words. It seems to work; even in this dimness that’s about as close to darkness as they’ll get in this city of eternal light, Vanitas can catch a tint to Ventus’s face.

Ventus laughs softly. “I wasn’t expecting you to say it back. It’s nice,” he says. “Hearing you be sweet.”

_Vanitas_ and _sweet_ are not usually two words that go together. Leave it to Ventus to make the impossible possible, though. He could probably pluck the sun out of the sky itself, if he truly wanted to.

He deserves to hear those words so badly, but Vanitas wants the moment to be special for him. More than that - he wants it to be unforgettable. He wants the moment to steal Ventus’s breath away the same way Ventus steals his every time they’re together.

“I feel like such a sap,” Vanitas admits, pulling him closer to the edge of the turnout.

“I’m always kind of sappy. You want to match me, don’t you?”

“Will you ever stop flirting?”

“Now that I can? Probably not.”

“I’m convinced you say half the shit you do just so you can murder me.”

Laughing, Ventus shakes his head. “I say it because I love you, you doofus! I thought you knew that by now.”

There it is again, boulders dropped on him with such ease. He wants to walk by Ventus’s side so badly. He wants Ventus to hear him say it back.

The words catch in his throat, staying there with a stubborn insistence. Vanitas swallows around them. “...Come to the edge.” Ventus does, stopping right before the guardrail. Vanitas moves behind him and hugs him from behind, hooking his chin over Ventus’s shoulder to look down at the glittering city below them.

From this high up, they can see most of LA. A sea of gold sparkles and dances below them, the city raucously joyful in its celebration of existence. The skyscrapers of downtown flash their proud existence as the lights of Hollywood explode in neon delight. Running down the middle is a freeway, a river of white and red as cars race down the streets at every hour of night.

LA isn’t a city that lets the stars shine overhead. No, it brings those lights down to earth and lets them walk among the living.

And on the other side of the mountains they stand on lies that vast, unexplainable ocean, always ready to welcome Vanitas home.

“It isn’t stargazing, but Griffith is closed. I figured this might work as a runner-up,” Vanitas explains, forcing these words out around the ones that still cling to his throat.

“The lights are beautiful,” Ventus says softly, leaning back against him. “You came all the way out here just for me?”

Vanitas nods against his shoulder. A thought strikes him, one that was left forgotten in the corners of his mind for far too long. He dusts it off and breathes new life into it. “Did you ever go to Griffith to see that exhibit? I know it happened while we weren’t talking.”

Ventus hums, considering his words. “I almost didn’t,” he eventually says. He laughs, but there’s something a little bitter in the sound. It sounds the way a biting into a fruit that’s on the edge of unripe feels. “When you gave me those tickets, my first thought was it was the perfect place to ask you out. I wanted to be with you so badly, but whenever I got up the courage to ask, it never worked out. Something else always came up.”

He won’t let that happen again. Not when Ventus wants him here as badly as he wants to be here. They don’t need to be physically attached at the hip at every moment of every single day; they both know better now. But if Ventus wants to share something special with him, or settle into the unfamiliar cracks and grooves of Vanitas’s life, why not let him?

A question pricks at Vanitas’s skin. He has an idea of the answer, but a confirmation would be nice. “Ventus… how long have you had feelings for me?”

His answer rolls off his tongue so easily. “Since junior year of high school. Remember the first time you came over to my house and we snuck up to the roof to stargaze? I knew then.” Ventus takes a deep breath, his next words spilling over themselves in a frantic jumble. “I know that’s a long time to like you. Probably longer than you’ve liked me. And that’s okay, really! I still wanted you to know, a-”

“-Ventus.” Vanitas doesn’t feel bad cutting him off. He needs to know. He _has_ to know. He deserves the world, so who is Vanitas to deny him one small confirmation? “You couldn’t be more wrong if you tried.”

Ventus stills in his arms. His voice, when he does find it again, is small. “Really?”

Fragile. So easy to shatter.

Vanitas won’t let that happen.

There’s no need to be afraid of himself here.

As nerve-wracking as it still is, heart pounding so hard in his chest Ventus must be able to feel it against his back, he forces those words out. “I love you. I’ve been in love with you for years.” He lets them hang in the air, relishing the way Ventus leans his whole weight into Vanitas. Vanitas takes it with ease - he’s pretty strong, after all.

Ventus does what he apparently loves to do - he tilts his head and kisses Vanitas. When he pulls away, he murmurs a question into Vanitas’s cheek. “...For how long, exactly?”

“Honestly? For most of my life. I stopped denying it at the start of our junior year, but it started before then. I can’t pinpoint a specific moment. It was always just… there.” Maybe it started the first time Ventus looked at him and Vanitas felt electricity crackle over his nerves. Maybe it was the day Ventus held him close with compassion, in the way no one else ever had.

Or maybe it was the day a boy with a gap-toothed smile that Vanitas put there forgave him for something that he had no reason to.

Ventus’s hands come to rest over his own, squeezing his hands tightly. Not enough to hurt. Just enough to know that he doesn’t want to let go. “Sometimes I love you so much I feel I could burst. Like- it’s too much feeling for one person to hold. It scared me every time you disappeared. I don’t want you to leave anymore.”

“I won’t. Not anymore. Promise.” And he means it.

Their love is big, but their worlds are so much bigger. They won’t break again.

Still, Vanitas feels the itching need to acknowledge everything they’ve been through to get here. The wrongs from before still sting. “I’ve hurt you a lot, Ventus. I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”

“No more apologizing for things in the past, okay? You’re here now. That’s what matters,” Ventus replies, still holding his hands tight.

“I love you,” Vanitas says, because Ventus deserves to hear it again.

“I love you, too.”

For a while, they just stand there and watch the city lights below. They may not be able to see the stars over their heads, the night sky above them a sheet of hazy black save for the red and green dots of airplanes coming back to Earth, but the ones shining at their feet are good enough.

Vanitas is too wired to sleep. Exhilaration courses through his veins, keeping his eyes bright and his heart pounding. At the same time, he feels the way Ventus’s chest slows as it rises and falls. He’s falling asleep on his feet. It’s been a long week.

“Let’s go back, Ventus. It’s late.”

“Back home?” Ventus asks, nuzzling into his cheek.

It fills him with warmth from head to toe, the idea that Ventus could consider his apartment _home_. “Yeah. Back home.”

Home. That’s a deceptively simple word. One so small, but one that contains so much.

Home is driving down Sunset Boulevard at night with his windows down and the wind coursing through his hair. It’s the food trucks parked on street corners during every hour of the day. It’s the sparkling light and laughter of this concrete jungle. It’s a land of contradictions, the highest highs and the lowest lows.

It’s glittering sand between his toes. It’s the crash of the waves, more calming than anything else in the world. It’s the water rushing around his ankles, a lover eagerly welcoming him back into its fold whenever he steps in. It’s warm sunlight kissing the back of his neck, filling him with contentment.

It’s his small apartment with the furniture his friends helped him build. It’s the smell of eggs and bacon frying in the morning, the twice-daily walks he talks on that uneven pavement. It’s his pitbulls, unwavering in their love and loyalty.

It’s his friends, helping him learn to love one laugh at a time.

And home is the sun-bright, ocean-eyed boy in his arms.

This place, and these people, and these feelings - this, he realizes, is home.

 

* * *

  

iv.

The Italian restaurant Xion pulls into has way too much interesting decor within it for a simple chain restaurant. The chairs are ornate and the lights beautiful, even in the waiting area. Contrast that to the broken down sign outside, where half the letters on the billboard are blacked out. It’s pretty much exactly what he’d expect from this place.

He (very rightfully) laughed his ass off at her when he found out how wrong she had gotten the restaurant’s name. Xion, face red and cheeks puffed out in a way that tells him she’s been spending too much time with Kairi, can’t get him to stop.

It takes a little while, but before long, she starts laughing too.

They end up sitting at a table inside a fake train caboose. It’s cheesy, but there’s something he appreciates about it that he can’t quite explain.

They chat about nothing until their main dishes comes, finally dissipating the last of the tension from the graveyard. Leave it to Xion to make him feel better so easily.

Vanitas shoves a forkful of fettuccine alfredo in his mouth. It’s decent. Nothing to write home about, but nothing to complain about either. He bets Ventus would get a kick out of this. Grinning to himself, Vanitas takes out his phone and takes a quick Snapchat video, both of his food and of the girl he’s with.

Xion smiles and waves at the camera as he points it at her. After a moment’s hesitation, he flips the camera and offers a tight-lipped smile. He wouldn’t have done it if this was going to anyone other than Ventus.

But his boyfriend is a sap and he’ll whine if he doesn’t get to see Vanitas’s face. _Are you proud?_ He writes as the caption.

Ventus’s reply comes within a minute. Shouldn’t he be studying?

Wait. It isn’t a reply. It’s two replies, one after the other. The first is just a selfie of Ventus, grinning at the camera and captioned _My people!_ It’s cute. The second one is another selfie, though Ventus’s smile has grown warmer, effortlessly shifting to the one he saves solely for Vanitas. His free hand is by his face, his thumb and index finger crossed in the shape of a heart. He picked up the habit from spending too much time with Kairi _and_ Sora. He’s stuck little heart emojis around an especially shitty drawing of what Vanitas thinks must be himself in the corner, given the messy black spikes and yellow eyes.

_Love you_ , it reads.

Vanitas screenshots it. Looks like he found his new home screen.

He opens up his messages and sends a text back. _Love you too._

Xion’s on her own phone now - and he knows that look, she’s texting her girlfriend - but she notices him watching and smiles. “Ven?”

He nods. “How’d you know?”

“You have a certain smile whenever you message him. Usually when you talk about him, too.” She punctuates that with a twirl of her fork and an unceremonious shove of spaghetti into her mouth.

Vanitas can’t help but laugh. “God, we’re all a bunch of saps, aren’t we?”

She swallows. “I don’t know about you, but I kind of like it. Sappiness is kind of nice.”

Ventus isn’t the only person that he’s a sap over, though. Xion deserves to know. She knows that she’s his best friend, has been for a long time, but still. “If I’m already a sap, I might as well go all the way. You’re my best friend. And… well. I love you, and I don’t know what I’d do without you. So thanks. For being here, and for understanding, and for being there for me whenever I needed you.”

“I love you too, Vanitas,” she says. It’s all she needs to say.

A different kind of love than the one he shares with his sun-bright boy, but love all the same. No less important. No less needed.

The food helps restore his energy. His hands no longer shake as he eats. His soul settles back into his body, helping his exhausted heart heal.

Maybe closure isn’t scraping his pain bare for others to see. Maybe there’s some closure that can never be found with the way death cuts a story off in the middle of a sentence, cleaving a word in two without care for the climax.

There will never be reconciliation, not in the way that Vanitas still feels foolish to have hoped for the day before the old man died. He still hates the bastard. Maybe he always will.

He never grieved his loss as a person, for that moment when Xehanort’s spirit departed the land. He didn’t deserve that grief, not when Vanitas’s own father nearly tore him to shreds when he should have only ever built Vanitas up.

But Vanitas did grieve. He grieved for the loss of the possibility, however remote, of having a flesh-and-blood family that he could learn to care for.

He grieved for the potential of what could have been. For his past, and all of his pain.

He grieved for the the little boy he once was, the one he still carries with him now. For the death of the little boy he never got to be.

There’s a part of him, he thinks, whose grief will never fully end.

“Hey, Xion. Tell me something.”

“Yes?”

“Did you ever get over your mom’s death?”

Xion’s voice is soft, but it is not kind. It is somber, stating a fact she knows he doesn’t want to hear. “No. I don’t think I ever will, not entirely. There are still days where it’s hard. Still days where I really miss her. Even now, I’ll look at something and ask myself what she’d say about it. My dad said she was fascinated by trains, so just sitting here makes me think of her. How she’d probably like it here. But it gets easier. It doesn’t fully stop hurting, but it hurts less. Some days, it doesn’t hurt at all.”

It’s complicated, and it’s messy.

But she’s right.

Some days, it doesn’t hurt at all.


End file.
